Herod

64. Synagogue readings

2010-09-19T20:07:00.002+01:00

After several months, I'm resuming my blogs.
There is no particular order - this one is topical.

Judith allocates the readings of haftarot at her synagogue. I have asked her to allocate the reading to me, when the subject is rheumatological = the vision of the dry bones of Ezekiel 37 - one of my favourites.

To support her, I offer to step in when she cannot find a willing volunteer.
That happened for yesterday's service. Too many services in the week and nobody available. However, the Reform calendar have their own list, often different from the designated haftarot. So instead of the official listing for Shabbat Shuvah / Ha'azinu [David's prayer of thanksgiving from II Samuel XXII] they stipulated some verses from 3 prophets. Not very impressive.
So I decided that I would choose my own: 2 Samuel chapter 11, v.1-15. My reasons were -
# it is on the subject of planned sins and crime - to be atoned for on Yom Kippur;
# it's related to my forthcoming oneg on Bathsheva with some lovely slides,
# it's a brilliant literary episode.

Our rabbi is quite lenient, and he agreed to my suggested choice.
To save you the trouble of searching, I have included the passage [in italics] - I modified my translation to be as accurate as possible. The key words are, of course, 'hara anochi'. Judith said that my reading of it was very good. Ahh, I love this episode: but for the grace of God... If I was younger, and we had a flat roof, and there was a horny young neighbour whose husband was absent...

At the end of the year, when kings go forth to battle, David dispatched Joav [his army commander] to war, together with his servants, and with all Israel. They destroyed the Ammonites and laid siege on Rabbah.
But David stayed in Jerusalem.
Towards one evening David got up from his bed and strolled upon the roof of the king’s house. And from the roof he saw a woman washing herself. And the woman was very beautiful. David sent to make enquiries about the woman. And someone said, ‘is this not Bat-sheva, daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?’
And David sent messengers and fetched her, and she came to him, and he lay with her. She had been purified from her uncleanliness.
Then she returned to her house.
And the woman conceived; and she sent word to David and said 'I am pregnant' [hara anochi].
And David sent word to Joav [his commander] 'Send Uriah the Hittite to me'. And Joav sent Uriah to David.
And when Uriah came to him, David enquired how Joav was, and how the men were, and how the war was progressing. Then David said to Uriah, 'Go down to your house and wash your feet’. And Uriah departed from the king’s house, followed by the king’s gifts.
But Uriah lay down at the entrance of the king’s house, together with all his master’s servants, and did not go down to his own house. And they told David ‘Uriah has not gone down to his house'.
David said to Uriah ‘Have you not come from a journey? Why did you not gone down to your house?’ Uriah said to David ‘The Holy Ark, and Israel, and Judah, all sit in tents, and my master Joav and my master’s servants are camped in an open field – shall I, then, go into my house to eat and to drink and to lie with my wife? Upon your life, and upon your soul, I shall not do such a thing.’
David said to Uriah: ‘Stay here today, and tomorrow I shall dispatch you.’ So Uriah stayed in Jerusalem that day and the following day. And David invited him, and he ate and drank before him, and he made him drunk. And in the evening he left – to lie on his bunk together with his master’s servants. But he did not go down to his own house.
And the following morning David wrote a letter to Joav and sent it by the hand of Uriah. And he wrote in the letter as follows: ‘Place Uriah opposite the fiercest fighting, and then retreat from behind him, so that he shall be hit and he will die.'

When we toured Hittite sites in central Turkey, I entertained our fellow passengers on the coach with the story of this mercenary Hittite, whose wife had 'got a bun in her oven'. One of our fellow-travellers later checked his Bible and was impressed by my accuracy.

In my planned oneg, I'll elaborate some further points:
#' Bath-sheva' in Hebrew cynically refers to her marriage oath to Uriah, an oath which she broke.
# 'feet' in the Bible is often a euphemism for 'genitals'.
# I hope you'll agree that their adultery was initiated by the woman, and not by David.
# Uriah clearly knew of their adultery, and by staying away from his wife, he refused to accept paternity.
# Therefore he knew that he was now doomed to die - he did not have to read David's letter to Joav.
# It is interesting, that Uriah's wife did not come to see him during his visit to Jerusalem. I seem to remember some Talmudic law about such duplicate intercourse being forbidden.
# The Bible leaves out David's 2 obvious questions:
1. 'Are you sure that you're pregnant?' [-'My period is late, and I'm sick each morning'].
And 2. 'Are you sure your pregnancy is mine?' [-'I lay with nobody else, and you will see that the baby will have red hair'. Like Pricess Diana's second son?].
Nowadays there is science: a urine test detects pregnancy, and DNA will establish paternity.

But that's not the end of this particular Bible narrative. Read on!
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63. A Weekend of celebrations and more

2010-03-15T22:56:00.014Z

After a time in the doldrums, things were looking up. It started towards the end of February, when Heather began to celebrate her birthday/month: it's never just a day. Her friend Sally suggested secretly the creation of a book of contributions and photos - and it succeeded brilliantly. Heather had no idea until it was actually presented to her. This took place at the National Gallery. She had invited about 30 of her friends for an hour's guided tour of four paintings from different centuries - from ven der Weyden to Turner, followed by a meal in a reserved section of their restaurant. What her friends did not know was that Heather would be the guide.
A week before, we had gone to listen to a rehearsal and she did very well on the day. In fact some casual gallery visitors joined her guests to listen. The book organized by Sally is a brilliant summary of her life. You will not be surprised that I am quoting here just my own contribution:-

About Heather
Recording memories about Heather is hard - I'm getting old and do not remember a lot. And I'm also getting forgetful. She is my favourite youngest and tallest daughter, and now she is forty... kilograms - no, forty inches - no, forty something. Ah, years. I had been sure that our babies were going to be boys and therefore I would choose the name: William, in memory of my grandfather. So Judith chose Daphne for the first baby. And when we made the same agreement for our second child, Judith told me when I came to visit that she had chosen the name Ruth. For the third baby we agreed to choose the name together. Still no William. The Forsythe Saga was on television and the character of Irene was a lovely person. But we already had a close relative called Renee. At Westminster hospital one remarkable ward sister was called Heather, and Judith agreed. I cannot remember the conception or the pregnancy. Heather was born at Mile End Hospital. We refused a single room, because it was less safe for calling help in an emergency. The other 3 women in Judith's ward were all unmarried mothers. Judith's father was quite amused. Heather's birth was induced - we suspect that this was because the obstetrician was due to go on leave. With her first breath Heather inhaled a very keen cockney bargaining talent - unlike her elder sisters. From Judith, Heather inherited much tact and common sense. And an excellent talent for cooking. From me she inherited an overcrowded dentition that needed correction, but not the myopia - that went to Ruth. Her judgement and analysis of peoples' characters are superb. She has also inherited my sense of humour - and I'm telling everybody.

Alas, Sally herself herself was highly pregnant and could not come.

The next happy event was Jeffrey's upgrade of my computer. There were snags and setbacks, and required several visits, but with a new motherboard and a faster processor life now is certainly vastly less frustrating.

Lastly, the weekend just past. On Saturday we attended the Bat Mitzvah of Hannah, the daughter of David, the son of Judy's cousin. It took place in an orthodox synagogue. Therefore, for a girl, the ceremony took place after the conclusion of the Sabbath service, without prayer shawls, and with the women now sitting (separately) down in the main hall. Hannah gave her dissertation in a clear loud voice, pausing brilliantly between paragraphs: she is a clever girl. The rabbi praised her and presented her with a prayer book, but gave no blessing. After hospitality in the synagogue hall, we walked to the nearby parental home for a lovely fish-based meal. Naturally there was grace after the meal and an entertaining poem written and recited by David. They really are a lovely family.

Then, on Sunday, we attended the celebration of Harold's 90th birthday - in the premises of our [former] reform synagogue. Another tasty fish-based meal, and some humourous speeches. No grace after the meal, of course. Unfortunately there was live music throughout, which made conversation almost impossible. But it facilitated the post-prandial dancing - at which point we thanked Harold and Betty and departed.

Later we discussed our impressions and agreed that we would certainly not wish to celebrate our own possible event in that format. But there is still plenty of time.

62. MOONFLEET

2010-01-17T22:09:00.007Z

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After some 65 years I have read again Moonfleet by J M Falkner, written in 1898. Although I still remembered all the main events, it was as exciting to read as the first time round and I finished the 250 pages in two days.

Young John Trenchard's peaceful life with his aunt in the Dorset fishing village of Moonfleet ends dramatically when he discovers an underground passage leading from some tombstones in the churchyard to the burial vault of the Mohunes under the church. Soon he is drawn into a dangerous world of smugglers and contraband, and the mysterious legend of the Mohune's cursed diamond.

The plot and the narration are very well constructed, with a mixture of gripping descriptions and very touching emotions - all ending happily, of course, despite the killings and the tragic drownings. I agree with the blurb, that the story is 'as exciting to read today as it was when it first appeared in 1898'.

But I now realize that our primary school English teacher Miss Frankel actually read us a very simplified version [ see my post # 60 ]. So the verses which indicate the location of the diamond are much more cleverly compiled in the full text than the simple wording that I remembered; and the language and nautical terms are those of Falkner's times of 1898. But then, my English has improved too. My intention was to give the book to the children of my niece in Seattle and my nephew in Israel - but I now realize that they are still far too young.
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61. Second Bar Mizvah

2010-01-05T17:57:00.023Z

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NOTE: I have been advised not to divulge names in my blogs. To quote captain Mainwaring in Dad's Army, 'Don't tell him, Pike!'. Some readers will still guess, presumably, who Z.G. and D.V. are.

We attended Mr.Z.G.'s party to celebrate his second bar mitzvah. The scriptures mention 70 years as a full life span - so if you add another 13, you've qualified for another bar mitzvah celebration when you're 83. It's an excuse for a meal and over the years more and more people live long enough to achieve it.

We did not plan to attend the synagogue service on the Saturday, when he would read his original Haftarah portion and receive the current rabbi's blessing. But we had been invited to the party on Monday evening - a cleverly lettered invitation to dinner at Me Tsu Yan restaurant [it means 'excellent' in Hebrew] in Golders Green. The web site confirmed that it serves strictly kosher Chinese food - and it's quite expensive.

It was purely and typically Chinese, a multitude of quite delicious dishes too numerous to list. The 'spare ribs' were of course not pork but sheep or lamb, and the final dish was sorbet, and not milky ice cream. And tea was without milk either. The waitresses were, what Prince Philip would call, genuine 'slit-eyed', and most efficient. The chopsticks on their porcelain rest configured a 'John the Baptist' type cross, but nobody commented.

Z had taken over the entire restaurant for the evening and we were 60 people. Judith and I knew absolute nobody: neither his relatives - he has 2 children, and a sister in law, all with their numerous families. Nor did we know any of his friends from Israel or in the UK. We were invited because of our long term friendship. Z and I both speak Hebrew, and we were active in the British Association of Palestine-Israel Philatelists (BAPIP). Z used to supply me with Israeli stamps, and I gave him some advice and support when his wife developed cancer and later died - about 7 years ago. Best of all, D.V. had not been invited. I was told at the time that he had blocked my nomination to honorary membership, at the conclusion of my editorship of the BAPIP Bulletin.

Z assured me that dinner jackets were not required - just shirt and tie. In the event, we could recognize the Israeli guests. Despite the bitter cold, they came without ties. I had brought my skullcap - but half the men did not wear one. So my worry about an orthodox separation of the genders for seating was unfounded, and I also guessed correctly that there would be no blessing before the meal nor grace afterwards.

When I wrote to accept Z's invitation, I had made one of my customary 'bad' jokes. I had suggested that Judith could tutor Z on his Torah reading - as she does for the bar-mitzvah children at her synagogue. Naturally I knew that there was no need. I also tried to frighten Z by offering to give a 'speech' at the dinner. That one, Z accepted in part - he suggested, 'could you tell a joke when there is a gap between courses?'

Z was wearing a splendid embroidered Bokharan gown and matching skull cap. In due course, he invited me to tell my 'story'.

I chose the Catholic story that I had used some years ago, about Norman Leonard's imaginary 'audience' with the Pope in Rome. I converted it to an Israeli Jewish setting.
Stop me if you know it.

Visiting his barber, I began, Z told him of one of his planned regular trips to Israel.

On this occasion, Z told the barber, his friends had managed to get him to meet the President.
The barber was not impressed.
'You are flying El Al? - Oh dear, It's the worst air line. Never on time. Rude stewardesses.
And you are booked into the King Solomon hotel? - Oh dear, It's a dump.
And your friends have arranged for you to meet the president? - Take binoculars, you won't get near him...
Still, enjoy your trip.'

At his next haircut, after Z had returned, the barber remembered his conversation about Z's journey. 'Well, how did it go?' asked the barber. Z had been quite annoyed by the pessimistic advice that he had received. But now he was able to get his revenge, as he reported: 'Not only was El Al on time, but there were some free seats, and they chose to upgrade me to first class. Very comfortable. And the king Solomon hotel has been renovated and raised one more star rating.'
'Yes, yes' asked the barber, 'but did you see the president?'
'There were only 5 people present. We had a very pleasant talk: he is a very nice man.'
'But what did the president say to you?'
Z imitated the president's Israeli accent: 'He took one look at me and said, ''Meester G, where did you get this awful haircut?'' '

They liked it. And Z had explained that in addition to the age of 70 (plus 13), also 80 years plus 13 can be celebrated - offering a third bar mitzvah at 93. So Z gave us notice of his intention, but I doubt whether anybody will invite me then as an after dinner speaker... if I'm still alive... and whatever the food.
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60. Death

2009-12-11T19:46:00.022Z

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My first English teacher in primary school in Jerusalem was Miss Fraenkel - her father was a professor of mathematics at the university. She was a pleasant person. Later she developed pulmonary Tb and had to drop out. Once we understood some English, at the end of each lesson Miss Fraenkel would read to us, as a treat, installments of a simplified version of 'Moonfleet' by John Falkner [1898]. After more than 60 years, I still remember the poem on the scrap of paper the boy found in the tomb:

man may live some Sixty years
his Feet walk Down a path of tears
use your life Well for death comes soon
from north or South at night or noon...

After some guessing they noticed the words written in capitals and worked out that these revealed where the diamond was hidden: 'sixty feet down well south'. A clever idea!
I loved that story. Soon I bought the paperback and read ahead.

In recent years, a growing number of our relatives, friends and acquaintances have 'walked down' that path. Sometimes their path was medically fairly obvious to me, and sometimes treatments have been effective. Others were killed by their chemotherapy. The BMJ obituaries [which I always read first] usually give the cause of death of former colleagues: mainly strokes, heart attacks, and cancers. My own current afflictions are somewhat disabling, but not lethal - so far. Nevertheless, I have obviously given some thought to my own death.

My own death may not be rapid but lingering. So if I start to suffer intolerably, I shall commit suicide. The religious ministers of Judaism and Christianity claim falsely, that they forbid it, but the Bible in fact does not criticize it: prior to explosives, Samson was a 'suicide killer' and king Saul tried to fall on his sword - although in the end his servant had to help him. And Judas, the disciple of Jesus who has betrayed him for 30 pieces of silver, hanged himself. Nobody complained - only the cock crowed...

I will have no need to travel to Switzerland to be helped to commit suicide: A choice of medicaments is available to me at home - as long as I am not discovered prematurely and saved. A recent BMJ issue pointed out the risks to someone who might assist me in any way - they can be accused of murder. So it will need some very careful planning in secret, on my own.

It may still come as a shock to Judith, to my daughters and to some of my close relatives. But by now at least I'm not too young to depart. And I am absolutely sure that there are no after-life or reincarnation: the end is final. The disposal of the dead body is not important. Quite possibly the only comment said during that activity will be that ''he did love cheese''.

For some years I have been fully paid up for cremation. Unlike David Hulbert, I am not worried about the pollution caused by the fumes of mercury from the amalgam in my fillings. The undertaker can extract them first - as the Nazis did for gold. And unlike the widow of king Mausolus, whose passion for him made her eat some of his ashes every day, my ashes can be dumped unceremoniously on the nearest tip. Ruth thought that I might fancy having them scattered on the sea of Galilee. But there may be security, customs and public health obstacles. For me that would be a wasted journey: I'd rather visit once more, while I'm still alive. (*See end-note)

My father is buried in Jerusalem and my mother in Bat Yam, near Tel Aviv. The distance between them after death is irrelevant, and I have not visited either grave in more than 35 years. Yet I do not remember them less, just because I cannot touch a slab of stone. But one of my second cousins finds my attitude shocking.
When I ordered the grave stone for my mother, the stone mason asked what type I had in mind. I replied: 'the heaviest'. He did not comment. But he told me that his own occupation was actually based on a Jewish ritual deception: he was a Cohen, who was not allowed to enter cemeteries. So he had changed his surname - and nobody knew...

I regard the undertaking industry as profiteering from the bad conscience of the relatives. Embalming, elaborate coffins, funeral masses, family plots and matching tombstones are all a waste of money. By then it is too late for the deceased to benefit from their generosity.
Why not be kinder to them during life, or endow a memorial lecture instead?

When Daphne was little, we found a dead chick that had fallen out of the nest overnight. We put it in the dustbin. Daphne understood: ''When daddy dies, I'll also put him in the dustbin''.
I agreed.
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*note (27.03.10): I've just had a comment from my cousin in Israel - in Hebrew, of course. Amos enjoyed reading this blog post but he doubts the possibility of scattering my ashes on the sea of Galilee. By that time, he remarks, there will no longer be water in the lake. That depends on my survival, and the survival of the lake.
I am sure that Israel is now trying to slow down the depletion of the water. Formerly, despite available technology and abundant sunshine, for many years they neglected action to de-salinate sea water. It is my personal view that they preferred to keep up the pressure on Syria and Jordan, stopping them from using more of the water that they were obliged to pass to their Israeli enemies.
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59. Medical Gloom

2009-10-18T16:18:00.014+01:00

This week's BMJ contains an excessive dose of sad or worrying news. And a lot of the problems are insoluble.

It begins with an editorial on obesity. Fat people suffer more anxiety and depression, and depressed or anxious people get fatter. Antidepressants cause weight gain - and the manufacturers do not warn of this, as it would reduce their sales.

We are all aware of cases of sudden infant death syndrome - SIDS. There have been some notorious cases, including the enigmatic statements in court by professor Meadows. Yet mothers remain ignorant: they continue to sleep together with the baby, especially on a sofa; they smoke, and they drink. Avoiding these factors would reduce SIDS by more than half. Furthermore, mothers' smoking during pregnancy increases stillbirths by 38% and infant deaths by 31%. Perhaps, at the funerals, the priests should tell the parents that it was their fault?

Fraud and greed in medical research is frightening. All journal editors have just agreed on a stricter honest and transparent disclosure of their competing interests'. But greed is likely to continue. The bribes involved are enormous. For example, the US government compelled manufacturers of prosthetic hip and knee joints to declare all payments to doctors in 2007. They compared this with the payments from these manufacturers that were declared by orthopaedic surgeons at their annual meeting in the following year, when these products were discussed. Sixty doctors concealed payments of 12 million dollars in total !

In Germany, another scam is being used. Drug companies pay GPs up to £1,000 per patient for prescribing their new drug - and providing them with documentation of its effect. It is estimated that 25% of all German GPs take part in such 'trials', on more than 200 drugs. The patients are not aware, that they are being used as guinea pigs without their consent; and that they are providing the GP with a lot of extra income. Furthermore, the patients, or their insurers, have to pay for these often expensive drugs - they are not donated by the manufacturers.

Corruption goes deeper still. Dr Hurlstone, an award-winning consultant gastro-enterologist at Sheffield university, has just been discovered falsifying results and forging the signatures of co-authors in 3 published papers since 2007. Such dishonesty does not emerge suddenly: How was he not unmasked during more than ten years of his career progression?

And inevitably, fraud by drug manufacturers continues. GlaxoSmithKline are being sued in Philadelphia. They appear to have concealed their research findings, that the antidepressant Seroxat caused serious birth defects in infants of mothers who took it during pregnancy. Remember Thalidomide?
Sometimes the fraud is discovered almost by chance. GlaxoSmithKline (the same) manufacture 'ready-to-drink' Ribena in cartons. They boast that it contains 'four times as much vitamin C as oranges'. Two girls aged 14 in a school experiment found that Ribena in cartons contained almost no vitamin C. They received a 'brush-off ' from GSK but went to a newspaper and a TV company. They won, and in court GSK were fined a hefty sum. The two girls have now been voted New Zealanders of the Year.

Among all this gloom, there is one column-inch of good news. Recently a kind and caring nurse exposed poor standards of care at the Brighton and Sussex university hospitals NHS trust. She was tricked by television to give some innocent particulars. For this, the nursing and midwifery council struck her off: she lost her income and her career. [Later addition: I have just watched this council's spokeswoman explain their verdict: the bitch was brazenly defending the cruelty and incompetence of the Brighton hospital management's mistreatment of these helpless old people!]
So I was delighted to read that after appealing to the high court, the nurse has been allowed to return to work.

I know what I think of the nursing and midwifery council... and of the drug manufacturers... and of some academic researchers... and greedy German GPs... and of some members of our parliament...

58. Bible Names, Translations and Transliterations

2009-10-02T21:45:00.025+01:00

Reading Hebrew is complicated by the fact that its basic spelling, as it appears in the Torah, and in modern books and newspapers, has no vowels. One has to decide from the context, for example, whether the word 'DG' should be understood and pronounced as 'dig', 'dog', or 'dug'.
The rabbis exploited this feature to create their midrashim - as I did in my post #52. Their midrash might claim, for example, that during repeated copying of the sacred text the letter 'N' got omitted by accident. The complete word was actually 'DGN' pronounced 'dagan' - wheat, or 'Dagon' - the Philistine deity.

When I started to use an English translation of the Bible, a further obstacle appeared: translators misunderstood the Hebrew meaning. One classical example is the description of mining in Job chapter 28. The translators were quite ignorant of the technique of loosening by fire the quarried rock-face. But the earliest misleading translation originates from the Septuagint - see details of Jonah below.

Many of the personal names in the Old Testament have symbolic explanatory meanings, that are lost in translation. Thus we are told that Adam was formed 'from dust of the ground' - because earth is adamah in Hebrew. Without knowledge of Hebrew, this will not be apparent. Moses is Moshe in Hebrew and originates from 'limshot' - to pull out of water - he was pulled from the Nile by Pharaoh's daughter.
Some names have a meaning that is not immediately obvious: one has to search the background. The Hebrew meaning of Bathsheba is 'daughter of a vow'. She was the wife of Uriah the Hittite, and her name reminds us that she broke her marriage vow to commit adultery with king David.
Sometimes the name's meaning was clearly derogatory, such as the son of king Saul: Ish Boshet means man of shame, or man of genitals. That must be an editorial insertion by the opposition. Likewise the name Naval, which means villain. He was the miserly and wicked husband of the clever and beautiful Abigail - and she did explain his name to David.
Some women were never given a Biblical name at all: the wife of Lot - who disobeyed instructions, looked back at Sodom and turned into a pillar of salt; Lot's two daughters, who each committed incest as well as rape with their drunken father; and the wife of Potiphar, who tried to seduce Joseph.

The names of places often also have Hebrew meaning: Babylon - Bavel in Hebrew - derives from balal - 'mixing' - which refers to the confusion of languages that stopped the builders of its tower. Bethlehem is named after its principal crop - Beit lechem means house of bread. The river Jordan - Yarden in Hebrew - derives from yored - to descend - referring to its descending course. Jezreel - Yizreel in Hebrew means 'God will sow'. Usually, none of these explanations are included in our translated Old Testament texts.

The earliest important translation of the Old Testament was into vernacular Greek. The Septuagint - the 'seventy' in Latin - was created in Alexandria from the 3rd to the 1st centuries BCE by seventy-two Jewish scholars. But these scholars were not botanists. In the book of Jonah we read that a plant grew to provide shade for Jonah: a 'KIKAYON'. The scholars decided to 'translate' this into a similar-sounding Greek word - 'colocynthis' - gourd.

So since the 3rd century BCE, Jonah's kikayon is erroneously translated and illustrated as a gourd. But in fact, it is the castor-oil plant, Ricinus communis in Latin. Castor oil is a powerful remedy for constipation; and a protein extract of the castor bean is one of the most potent poisons known - Ricin. It was injected in Fulham in 1978 by a KGB agent as a pellet from a modified umbrella into the thigh of Georgi Markov, a Bulgarian dissident. He died after 3 days.

The Septuagint has caused another major problem, that has also penetrates the English translation of the Old Testament: the Greek hardly uses the Hebrew consonants for 'V' and 'W'. Avraham becomes Abraham - thus losing the meaning of 'father' for the 'Av'; Naval and his wife Avigayil (mentioned above) become Nabal and Abigail; Batsheva becomes Batsheba, and there are scores more examples.

But these distortions are aggravated further by arbitrary British mutilations of the Hebrew names and their pronunciations. So Biblical 'Yerushalayim' becomes 'Jerusalem' and king 'Shlomo' becomes 'Solomon'. The pronunciation of the town of Lachish has been changed by eminent British scholars to sound like 'Lake-ish'. I grew up in Palestine and I am fluent in the Hebrew Bible. During lectures and in texts, I find it difficult to follow these anglicised pronunciations.

Orthodox Jewish publications tend to avoid these English mutilations. They will refer correctly to the prophet Eliyahu, rather than the anglicised Elijah. And the Israeli post office are making an effort for correctness in their printed cancellations of place names: For some time now, they have been using the correct Hebrew-sounding 'Yerushalayim'.
But at other times the post office are still struggling. To sound like Hebrew, the anglicised 'Safed' should probably be spelled as 'Tsfat': but I have noticed three other versions in their handstamps: CFAT [1.8.51]; SAFAD [1.9.54]; and ZEFAT with underlined 'Z' [30.9.57] - and there may be more. They resort to a hook above the 's' to signify 'sh', and an underlined 'h' to signify 'ch' [as in loch]. The transliteration committee are aiming to design a race horse - but so far they have produced a camel.

The latest attempt at Hebrew transliteration appears in the new Reform prayer book, issued last year. It requires a detailed preliminary study of its rules of correct pronunciation. Once you have mastered this, you can struggle with these transliterated passages - while everybody else in the congregation follows the Hebrew prayers. And by providing this aid, the children do not have to learn to read Hebrew any longer. The consensus is that this is an expensive unnecessary edition - an ego trip for its editors, that was forced on some communities against their majority votes.
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57. Feline Tales

2009-09-30T17:30:00.005+01:00

Judith's cousin Hugh and his wife Bernadette in Manchester have two cats: Myfanwy and Mimi. Recently Myfanwy disappeared for some days, causing her owners some anxiety. The police were notified, and neighbours were alerted. It turns out that she had just stayed for some time in a nearby garden. I had wondered whether, despite having been neutered, she was still in heat, seeking males. But when I researched the subject it became apparent that this was very unlikely. She was just disloyal.
Or maybe she was nursing an injury.

These exciting events reminded me of my own feline experiences.
Towards the end of my secondary education we had a new biology master. He suggested that we should watch the dissection of a cat. So a few of us set out to catch a cat. Large numbers of feral cats did swarm in the yards and around the dustbins in Jerusalem, where we lived, but it was quite impossible to catch them. Hardly anybody kept domesticated cats.

Then one day I found a dead cat lying in the road. I put it in a sack and took it to school. The biology master was delighted and arranged its dissection and
anatomical demonstration without delay, before the carcass would decompose.
We watched fascinated - and I haven't forgotten it. My interest in biology certainly influenced my later trend toward medicine.

None of our family ever kept animals - except a tortoise, who died the first winter. Dogs do show genuine recognition, loyalty and affection - but not sufficient to induce us to acquire one. And I definitely do not like cats. They are only friendly toward people who feed them - they remind me of the classical description of prostitutes.

My next feline contact was in medical school, where the pharmacology course
included a series of practical experiments using cats. Groups of students were each allocated a living cat in a sack - ferals that had been caught somehow. The lab technician injected each cat through the sac with a barbiturate solution - aiming for the abdominal cavity. After an interval, the sleeping animal could be safely removed from the sac and fixed by its limbs to the work bench. More anaesthetic could be injected as required.

An artery in the groin was tied to the end of a glass cannula and connected to a
manometer filled with a solution of heparin to prevent clotting. The cat's blood pressure was recorded through a stylus onto a 'kymograph' - a slowly revolving
cylinder of smooth paper blackened with soot. At the conclusion of the experiment, the paper was carefully detached from the cylinder, drawn through a fixing solution of varnish and left to dry. The cat was killed - they called it 'sacrifice'.
The members of each of our groups shared sections of the kymograph paper record and we wrote our individual reports of the experiment.

On one occasion there was an unfortunate 'cat-astrophy': the wife of the medical school dean had lost her domesticated pet cat and she suspected foul play. At the time, we were the only course that used cats. During the following experiment she stormed into the laboratory - and actually identified her cat on one of the tables. It was too damaged and could not be rescued. She was furious and there were embarrassing repercussion - out of our earshot.

So when we visit Hugh and Bernadette, we maintain our indifference towards the feigned affection of their cats. If the cats persist, I just whisper: 'remember pharmacology'... and they soon give up.
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56. Philately [Stamps]

2009-09-25T22:11:00.009+01:00

I have been collecting stamps for most of my life. It starts in earnest in1948. We were under Arab siege in Jerusalem and the People's Directorate established a postal service and produced stamps - Jewish National Fund stock overprinted 'POST'. Here was a chance to start a collection of a new country from the very beginning.
The Jordanians were lobbing 3 inch mortars shells into the city, but at 15 years one is not fearful. So I hurried the 2 miles to the post office to buy the series of 3 values - on two different occasions [they changed the design] and to post the 'first day covers' to myself.
Various other Jewish sites issued their own stamps: Haifa, Safed, Rishon le-Zion - partly for postal service for their isolated residents and partly as a source of income from local collectors. Some weeks later the State of Israel was declared and the regular stamps arrived in Jerusalem.

My father had been an employee of the Palestine Mandate administration - which ceased on 15th May. He was now unemployed, pending the establishment of the Israeli institutions. We had no income and the new stamps were expensive - so I did not buy them. Later I had to pay much more.

But soon I kept buying new issues as mint stamps and first day of issue covers. I became a member of the British Association of Palestine-Israel Philatelists [later the Holyland Philatelic Society] and I edited their Bulletin for a time. And later I added two other new stamp issues: the United Nations, and the Channel Islands. And as I resided in Britain, I also collected GB. When Britain started various devices for the mechanical cancellation and sorting of letters, I found it very interesting and joined the Postal Mechanization Study Circle.

It was clearly the thrill of collecting, and the possession of 'complete series', that motivated me. Judith was totally indifferent, and none of the children were interested. But time marched on. I stopped my subscriptions for new stamps. At the same time, the world scene of philately changed. First, excess stamp issues just milked collectors: Who is interested in 'space exploration' issued by Yemen?!? And the designs were becoming far less attractive. Second, e-mail cut out much of the use of the little colourful labels and the conveyancing of paper letters: the aggressive postal workers on strike are cutting off the branch on which they are sitting. And third, youngsters have shifted their time, interest and passion from philately to computers and ipods.

Judith has promised, that if I die before I have disposed of my collection[s], it will all end up as a spectacular bonfire. So I am going to sell the lot, while I keep swallowing my pills and taking care when crossing the road, until it is completed. I am very doubtful, if anybody among my readers is an interested collector. But if you are, do drop me an email.
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55. Our shared punch lines

2009-09-25T20:50:00.006+01:00

My late brother Michael loved good jokes. To aid his memory, he used to enter the punchline on his computer. Unfortunately, he would not always remember the rest of the joke later, and he might contact me to remind him: 'how does it go...'. But our youngest daughter, who has an excellent sense of humour, is young enough to remember the whole of the jokes. Over the years, between us, some of the best punch lines have acquired their own life. We no longer have to remind each other of the rest of the joke.

Here are a few old examples, that we allude to from time to time, when the punch line is appropriate. For your benefit I shall first outline the joke and then give you IN ITALICS CAPITALS the punch line [or lines] that we would use.

The devoted son has finally found a birthday present for his mother: an expensive talking parrot. A week later he phones her to ask: how is the bird? His mother says, 'IT WAS DELICIOUS!' The son is appalled: 'You ate the parrot?!? He spoke five languages!!!' 'SO WHY DID HE NOT SAY ANYTHING?'

A man went into a Catholic church and spoke to the priest. 'I'm 83 years old. Last night I picked up two girls and made love twice with each.' The priest finds out that he was Jewish. 'If you are Jewish, why do you come to the church to tell me all this?' The old Jew answers proudly: 'I AM TELLING EVERYBODY!' [It sounds best pronounced 'everybuddy']

Later, we heard a sequel to this event. One of the hookers tells the old man that she is now pregnant. He decides that he is honour bound to marry her, but naturally his family are quite appalled. Finally he agrees to consult his GP.
The doctor establishes that he is 83, and his intended wife is 22. 'You realize, Sir, that with such a difference in age, there is a risk that intercourse may be fatal?'
The old man thinks about it. 'Vell, doktor, IF SHE DIES - SHE DIES'.

For his birthday, the mother gives her son two beautiful silk ties.
So when he next visits his mother, he wears one of the new ties. She takes one look at him and asks: 'WHAT IS WRONG WITH THE OTHER ONE?'

54. Readers Digest: scam in installments

2009-09-17T14:52:00.009+01:00

In mid-August, well after the Readers Digest stipulated deadline described in my blog #46, I described their prize draw. I considered that it was a scam. I had replied in the 'NO' envelope and I would hear no more - but I was wrong: in September they wrote to me again, to announce the 'Great News': 'shortly', they promised, I could be confirmed as the sole winner of their £5,000 Immediate Payout Draw.

Because £5,000 is a large sum to win, they also wrote to prepare me gently for the Big Event. They would post a large envelope, whose appearance they described. 'It contains everything you need to guarantee your chance to take delivery of the Prize Cheque'. Fancy that: delivery of the prize cheque! Another enclosure gave useful advice on what to do, on notifying relatives, and on being interviewed by the media.

I was very excited. I have never won anything, nor have I been interviewed by the media. I also planned how to spend the money. I was just waiting to 'taking delivery of the prize cheque', as their letter said. Every day I waited for the postman, and I was worried about the postal strike, and thefts from the mail.

Four days later the large envelope arrived. Was it delivery of a cheque? No! Was it an invitation to subscribe to Readers Digest? YES! But they wrote to assure me of my participation in the prize draw. There were more details: If I also subscribed to Readers Digest - at just over half price - I could use the 'YES' envelope, and I could also win a car. Otherwise I should use the 'NO' envelope, and I might win - - nothing.

So when would I know if I had won? I found it in the small print on another page: in February next year. But there was also a single prize of £5,000 (as promised) - to be drawn next month - October 2009. I did not want the Readers Digest. But could I win despite my 'NO' reply?

As for winning the grand prize in February 2010 - this was actually an installment plan: it will pay just over £1,000 per month for life, and that was taxable. At my age, I concluded, I must therefore pay more attention to my longevity: I should resume the Aspirin, that was not doing me any good according to the BMJ; I must arrange to see my GP next week for another checkup; and I must think again about joining a synagogue (or a church, or a mosque - whichever is the most potent).
Which religious food restrictions should I follow: Yom Kippur, Ramadan, or Lent?
- Or should I just have lots of chicken soup and seek a second opinion?

But what if, despite everything, my epitaph just says : HE DIDN'T WIN ANY PRIZES IN THE END - BUT HE DIED GOD-FEARING AND HEALTHY.
What would be the point? In France, or Italy, the epitaph might at least have mentioned 'mourned by his wife, his daughters, and his two most recent mistresses'.

Dream on... Life is certainly a lottery: but what about the Readers Digest draw?

53. E-mail frauds

2009-09-10T11:47:00.009+01:00

Further to my blog # 46, I should mention that Readers Digest did not contact me again, so their offer of prizes was presumably a fraud. Needless to say they do not publish the names of winners - not even fictitious invented ones. The actual winners of the scam are Readers Digest, of course.

I keep my internet security setting on 'medium' to avoid the blocking of incoming messages in other languages, such as Hebrew; as well as the blocking of the pictures of BBC news and of Lidl sales lists - they both come with pictures. As a result, scams similar to the Readers Digest mailing do get through. I just delete them unopened - I understand that this is safe. But despite my urge to reply, giving misleading details - including fictitious age (I'm 124), fake bank account numbers and address (mine is in Downing Street) etc, I was advised not to do so. The scammers would get evidence that my email is 'active' and I might be inundated with enormous amounts of follow-up mail next.

For interest, I have logged the following fraudulent emails over the last week:

# Rose Perez (later signed 'Parez') - offer of 10 million euro. So what's your real name?

# Deborah Russell - offer of cheap drugs.

# Mr Edes Abebe from Nigeria (African scammers usually use titles: 'I am Mr Edes Abebe') - 30 million pounds sterling are available for illegal transfer (of course), of which 30% are for me. Terrible grammar: use this money for English lessons, mister!

# Petra Newsome - offer of cheap sex drugs. That I find insulting - Petra should come and satisfy herself!

# Madam Jeanette from Ghana - offer of 2.7 million US dollars. It is signed by Mrs Jeanette Gideon Arab - presumably a rich hermaphrodite, or a two-faced bisexual freak.

# Mrs Angela Nkrumah from Accra, Ghana - 500,000 dollars. I forget whether the owner of the legacy had been a victim of his own body guard, or of a crocodile.

# Norris Milligan - cheap drugs.

# Fondazion di Vittirio - 500,000 dollars towards my education. They also need English lessons!

# Ferdinand Dotson - herbal drugs for slimming.

# Kelvin Snyder - cheap sex pills 'for treating erectile men's erectile dysfunction'. I can assure you, Kelvin, that I've never met an 'erectile man'... - have you?

# Rosie Sloan - drugs to enhance your sexual life, fast-acting.

Potentially, I could be slim, healthy, virile - and stinking rich - - I can but dream...

52. A Brand new Midrash

2009-09-07T10:17:00.020+01:00

Google explains that ''Midrash is a way of interpreting Biblical stories that goes beyond simple distillation of religious, legal or moral teachings. It fills in many gaps left in the biblical narrative regarding events and personalities that are only hinted at.''

I would like to report here a new midrash. It was discovered in one of the Judean desert caves near Qumran. The Essenes who lived there are regarded as physicians, and indeed this new midrash is of medical contents. Some rabbis have been famous physicians - Maimonides was one. So it is not surprising that medical topics entered the rabbinic midrashim. I am dedicating this brand-new Midrash to Rabbi Larry Becker of Judith's synagogue. Larry is particularly fond, and very knowledgeable, about this form of religious literature.

The newly discovered midrash concerns the Biblical story of the matriarch Sarah. The Bible tells us that Sarah could not have children. From this midrash we now learn the reason: she suffered from Chlamydia infection - a well-known cause of sterility. The midrash reported a heated dispute among the rabbis about the correct spelling of Chlamydia. Some of the rabbis claimed that it ended with a 'heh' - the word was 'Chlamyd-yah, short for Chlamyd-yahu - the Chlamyd of God'. But others claimed that the word ended with an Aramaic 'aleph' - in the same way that 'ha-gdi = THE lamb in Hebrew turns into 'gadya = THE lamb in Aramaic. These rabbis suggested that Chlamydia just meant 'THE Chlamyd' in Aramaic. But those rabbis were in the minority.

Next, the new midrash describes how the infected Sarah was given by Abraham to Avimelech, the local king of Gerar. As we would expect, very soon all the women in the palace of Gerar stop having babies - - until king Avimelech understood the source of the infection and returned Sarah to her husband. The rabbis do not say who made the diagnosis. The Bible reports that it was a private consultation by the Lord. Through Sarah, King Avimelech sent the consultant a fee of a thousand pieces of silver, plus sheep, cattle and slaves for Abraham.

As is usually the case in Chlamydia, Sarah's partner Abraham was also infected. The Lord was not sure how to help him. So He advised Abraham to eradicate the Chlamydia infection by undergoing circumcision - of himself and all the males in his clan. And then God sent a health visitor to visit them - the Bible calls him an 'angel' but the midrash calls him 'mashkivan' - a sex therapist. The midrash describes very detailed and explicit sexual advice to the couple. There are descriptions on love making positions, and an interesting explanation why Sarah laughed, when the angel had actually instructed her to moan... But as I may have some delicate readers, I shall skip all these gripping details. You could try to phone me - particularly if you are old and barren yourself.

Following the angel's advice, the new midrash vividly describes the circumstances of Sarah's conception. Apparently three of Abraham's sperm reached the egg simultaneously and they started a heated discussion: Which of them should fertilize the ovum. From the arguments it becomes clear, that each sperm represents one Jewish rabbinic discipline: orthodox, reform and liberal. It is a brilliant discussion, and I would strongly recommend that you take the time to read it.

But the outcome is quite unexpected, and some scholars suggest that this is a later edited addition to the midrash: the Moslem sperm wins. Allah hu akbar - Allah is the greatest.
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51. A French blog

2009-09-04T13:43:00.015+01:00

When I worked in Casualty during my training, one of the senior medical registrars (one grade below consultant) was called 'Smithy'. I forget his first name. He was universally liked - for two reasons.
First, he was helpful and sensible. If you thought a casualty needed admission, most senior registrars who were 'bleeped' would promise to come to casualty to assess the patient themselves. If they were on their consultants' ward round, or in a busy out-patient session, it might take up to two hours or more before they would appear. So in the meantime the patient, the relatives, and the casualty nurses all complained. - No limit of four hour in casualty existed in those days.

'Smithy' was different. If you described to him the medical situation over the phone, he would credit you with medical common sense, and he would tell you to admit the patient. At least, that was my personal experience. Possibly he trusted some other casualty officers less, but he certainly never kept me waiting to come to casualty and verify the situation.

Smithy's other attraction was his store of superb jokes. As the beer poured into him, so the jokes poured out. Many would cause this typeface to blush bright crimson red; and many I cannot remember. But I think that the story of the adulterous wife will not be blocked, and it will not be forgotten.

It concerned an Englishman who had a passion for France and for everything French. He visited France whenever he could, and he started reading French novels. But, like most British, he only understood English. So he would mark his books and bring them to his regular bistro. Soon, the local 'patrons' knew him and they liked the liquid generosity of this foreigner. So they gladly helped him to translate difficult phrases. He was particularly puzzled, he told them, by the term 'sang froyd'. That's how he pronounced it.

'Sang froyd? sang froyd?' they repeated, and they rolled their eyes and shrugged their shoulders in true French style. Then one of the Frenchmen, who was less drunk, guessed right: 'Ah, you mean sang froid [= cold blood]'. They all nodded.
'Well', said his new French friend, ''let me explain to you 'sang froid' with an example. Imaginez-vous a merchant in Paris, who travels to Lyon occasionally on business. But on one occasion, he returns home much earlier. His house is deserted - but as he enters the bedroom - mon Dieu! his wife is in bed with another man!! So the merchant drags the man from the bed, and throws him (naked) down the stairs, and then he does the same with his wife - also naked. That is sang froid, my friend.'

'No, no!' shout the other men in the bistro. 'That is not sang froid - that is savoir faire! [= know what to do]' And one of the others in the bistro now offers the correct explication: 'Imaginez-vous this merchant in Paris, who travels to Lyon occasionally. But on one occasion, he returns home much earlier. His house is deserted - but as he enters the bedroom - Mon Dieu! his wife is in bed with her lover!! So the merchant stops, turns round, leaves the bedroom, and shuts the door. That, my friend, is sang froid.'

'No, no!' shout all the other men in the bistro. 'That is not sang froid - that is laisser faire!! [= leave alone]'. But then another of his French friends offers the correct explanation. 'Listen to me. You have seen this merchant from Paris, who travelled to Lyon, but when he returned home and entered his bedroom - Mon Dieu! his wife is in bed with this other man!!'

The bistro is quiet - everybody is listening. Many of them have been in that situation. '- So as you know, the husband finds his wife in bed with her lover. The wife glances at her husband the merchant, and then she turns to her lover and said: carry on, darling. Don't stop now! --and they DO carry on -'
- That is sang froid, my friend.'

'Votre sante!' 'Cheers!'

50. Death and burial

2009-09-02T10:20:00.010+01:00

We have attended Laura Brody's tomb-stone dedication on Monday (bank holiday) - she had died of mesothelioma. So had Sandra Jacobs. That is curious, because asbestos dust that causes it is inhaled almost always by men - builders, electricians. But their female partners can get contaminated when they wash the dusty work clothes. It can take up to 20 years or more to develop; but once it is noticed and discovered, it is fatal within a year and there is no effective treatment.

When we buit our previous house extension, the building rules required an asbestos slab to line the garage ceiling. The carpenter, Dave Heeks, sawed the material without wearing a mask, and both Judith and our neighbour warned him and gave him a mask. We do not know whether he continued to use it, but some 30 years later we heard that Dave had died from mesothelioma.

At the cemetery we noticed the adjacent memorials of several other former friends: Jack Rosenberg, Lilian Goldsmith, Cecil Dalton, Rita and Stan Britain. All neat and polished slabs - a final payment for the dead relative. Sometimes I wonder whether a costly memorial suggests the survivors' worse conscience. With the passage of the years, we now attend the cemetery more often. My mother also used to complain: I have more friends in the cemetery than I have in town.

The jottings that now follow might upset reader[s]. Certainly Daphne should stop here. But there's no anger, Heather!

To begin with, I do not need the physical memorial as a reminders. I have not visited my parents' graves since their funerals decades ago: I can remember them vividly, and no slab of stone is required. In my irreverent humour in 1977 I deeply offended the stone mason in Israel when I ordered my mother's tomb stone. To his question, 'what sort of stone I had in mind', I replied 'the heaviest'. There is a tradition of resurrections in the holy land, of course. Why risk it?

In fact, if my wishes are fulfilled, I shall not be wasting good plant-growing ground for a grave. I am fully paid up for cremation. This also avoids the possible cold, rainy and mudy funeral at the cemetery. I mentioned this to Rabbi Hulbert as we squelched our way towards one burial recently. But he objected: the vapours of my amalgam fillings will pollute the air with mercury vapours. Well, perhaps the undertakers can extract those teeth first - they do it for implanted pacemakers, and the Nazis did it for the gold crowns...

Nor do I wish my ashes to be preserved: they belong in the nearest dustbin. Death is the final end of a person - perhaps the 'soul' persists in the DNA - but that DNA includes the bad as well as the good! The cremation ashes are waste. I was interested to learn the ideas of professor Isaiah Leibovitz on this topic. He was both highly intelligent and deeply orthodox. I knew the family - his eldest son was a colleague in medical school but died of cancer. Leibovitz said that after death there was 'nothing'. Absolutely true.

When I recently mentioned my ideas on cremation and 'no grave' to my relatives in Ein Gev, they were appalled at the thought, of not having a tomb to visit. Indeed, the cemetery at Ein Gev is lovingly tended and visited. But an annual Chinese meal sounds better.

Some time ago my cousin Amos and his wife showed me an interesting historical item: a simple metal box with a lid - about the size of one of those saccharin pill containers. It was to be hung around the neck and was used by my grandfather, when he was an artillery soldier in the first world war - on the austro-hungarian side. Inside the box was a small folded form. My grandfather had entered his name -Wilhelm Weis- and the following instruction if he were to be killed: 'WO GEFALLEN - RASH BEGRABEN' = where fallen - quickly buried. 'Quickly' was underlined. Ninety years later, I agree.
Wilhelm survived, and it is entirely thanks to him that we escaped from the Nazis. But that is another story.

49.Behind the news

2009-08-23T10:07:00.019+01:00

The Scottish Justice minister MacAskill included a perverse argument In his reasons for releasing Al Megrahi, the Lybian murderer of Lockerbie :

'Mr Al Megrahi now faces a sentence imposed by a higher power. It is one that no court, in any jurisdiction, in any land, could revoke or overrule.'

MacAskill is mistaken for two reasons. First, in my opinion the murderer should not have been released.
And second, that statement clearly suggests, that Megrahi's death sentence, from prostate cancer, is a divine punishment for his crime - from God or, in his case, from Allah. MacAskill's false argument is based on the original Biblical doctrine, that life and death, and sickness and health, are all in the exclusive power and control of God, meted out as punishment or reward. That is why there are virtually no human doctors or treatments described in the Bible.
Moses, in his final speech, quotes God as saying: 'I put to death and I keep alive. I wound and I heal' [Deuteronomy-32:39]. Likewise, God is in control of all illnesses and cures - and fertility, of course: 'I will remove all sickness out of your midst... I will grant you a full span of life'. [Exodus-23:25].
Furthermore, physical disabilities are also entirely within God's power, as punishment for sins, of course. God tells Moses: 'Who is it that gives man speech? Who makes him dumb, or deaf? Who makes him clear-sighted or blind?' [Exodus-4:11]
As the Scottish minister suggested, diseases, cancers and disabilities, are inflicted as divine punishment for sins - incapable of human influence. When we are afflicted, we ask: 'what have I done to deserve it?' The word 'pain' actually means punishment.

So the reverse applies as well: anyone who is sick or disabled must have sinned. Therefore, they deserve our scorn and rejection. Leprosy sufferers were shunned by Byzantine society - many centuries before their bacillus was discovered. They bore the hallmarks of sin! That is one of the most harmful legacies of the Bible. And it is still very much alive today. The clergy still use it to explain and justify the suffering of their parishioners: 'maybe you should increase your donation, my son?'
And when Glen Hoddle declared, that disabled people are former sinners, who are being punished, nobody objected. So if you see a cripple, you should wonder what sin he had committed.
If you are a Moslem, you do not have many crimes to commit. Certainly murder is permitted. Judaism and Christianity, in contrast, cunningly ensured that everybody would have a bad conscience. They defined a great deal of sexual activity as sinful, even within marriage - even single persons masturbating. But that will have to be a separate blog.
Before that, in the mean time, Al Megrahi, MacAskill, and myself, will all end up in hell - for different reasons.
- What about you??

48.Our golden Lodgers

2009-08-22T19:42:00.008+01:00

Hamid and Gita had moved into our former house further up the road and we have remained friends. As they pass our house, they very kindly drop in post that is still addressed for us at our former house - mainly begging letters from charities, that had bought cheap obsolete mailing lists. (The Moslem ones are quite moving).
We, in turn, keep a key of their house for them, for the odd occasions when one of their children locks themselves out. We have several such keys from various neighbours: we are mostly at home when needed, and we have honest faces. In case a burglar finds these keys, their labels are in code.
Some 3 weeks ago Hamid and Gita were going on holiday abroad. On this occasion, Gita asked for two favours: to water their plants in the garden and in the house, and to look after their two goldfish. Judith agreed, and Gita delivered the large bowl plus a jar of their food.
The weather was mostly hot and dry, and Judith looked after the hydration of the plants. But for the first time ever, we were looking not just after our children, but also two live animals. The bowl stood on one of the work surfaces in the kitchen, visible constantly. It is said that goldfish have a memory of several seconds - which is probably true. They never showed any sign of recognition, or getting used to us. They still circle in panic whenever I passed nearby. Neither did they seem to recognize each other, react to one another, or play, or fight.
The two fish are identical, without any distinguishing marks. We certainly did not fancy naming them - we are not romantic that way. But I well remember that our niece Miriam also had two goldfish. As she was a child at the time, and with a father who loves Hebrew terms, they were given appropriate names, of course: DAGA [dag = fish] and SHOOTA [shoot = float]. The final 'a' converts each of these words into Aramaic: THE fish, and the imperative form of the verb.
I do not know how long they survived. But unlike the joke about the talking parrot that the man gave to his mother, I'm quite certain that they were not eaten as 'most delicious' - and there was no other resident animal in that house that could have consumed them. I think goldfish are of the carp family and edible.
Now Miriam has her own son - but no pets as yet, I think. But if Aaron were to have two goldfish, I know what they would be called.

47.What's behind the news

2009-08-17T20:55:00.010+01:00

From time to time there are news items that cry out for comments. Here are a few:

A Puma helicopter crashed in Afghanistan. Two of the occupants were killed, and now the pilot has given evidence, hidden from view [why?]. He said the following:-

1. Just before the crash, the radio failed. In a cloud of dust, the pilot lost his bearings and crashed. We were told that the radio on the Puma is 'notoriously unreliable'. [how long??]

2. The occupants had been unable to fasten the Puma's safety belts over their bulky equipment. This defect was also well known. It might have saved their lives.

So, to quote some labour minister or other, the Puma was clearly not 'fit for purpose', and this was well known. Now if I were their commanding officer, I would have refused to order that flight in a grossly faulty helicopter. However, stopping the flight would have blocked any future career prospects or promotion for that commander. Better to risk the lives of the helicopter occupants...

Next, Aung San Suu Kyi and her dotty American visitor. Across the lake, an elderly American swims to visit her house, and knocks on her door to deliver a warning from God. Here is a highly intelligent woman, imprisoned and closely watched by Burmese soldiers. But instead of calling her guards to arrest the intruder - an obvious agent provocateur, she gives him hospitality overnight - for which she knew that she would receive an additional term of imprisonment.
Did her guards tell her at first that it was OK to admit the man, and then pretended otherwise? Or was it a desperate lonely woman's yearning for a one night stand? I do not think so! Why the hell did she let him in?

I suspect that the American man was found, briefed and advised by the Burmese. An elderly man and a religious nut, he might even have been assisted by the Burmese in his heroic swim. Once he had caused a legitimate prolongation of Suu Kyi's sentence, to prevent her from taking part in the next elections, the Burmese no longer needed him and they let the US senator take him home. He was checked in a hospital first: was it psychiatric?

Next - the alleged torture by MI5 of Binyam Mohamed. He is a British convert to Islam and I am convinced that he was flown around, interrogated and tortured as he claims - including by MI5. The relevant flight records of landings and re-fuelling have just been mysteriously 'lost'. Has anyone been disciplined?
So how could Milliband, a respected government minister, truthfully deny that British intelligence was involved? No, Milliband is not lying: it is the civil servants who have briefed him who are. They are anonymous and protected. They know exactly what the minister wants to hear - and so they tell him. Orally, no paperwork!
These are the same civil servants who briefed Tony Blair about the 30 minute threat of Iraqui weapons of mass destruction. Except that Blair swallowed this convenient lie, instead of asking questions. He was a barrister!

Lastly some questions: I do not believe that Princess Diana was murdered, as poor Fayed claims. The palace and the intelligence services are far too stupid and incompetent. Now if the Israeli Mossad had been involved - maybe...
But 3 questions have bothered me ever since - each could have easily saved her life:

- Why did Diana and Dodi not stay in the Ritz hotel that night?

- Why did none of the intelligent adults in that car instruct the speeding driver to slow down?

- Why did Diana, the mother of two young children, not wear her safety belt?

- I suspect that we shall never know.

Next time - corrupt MPs and the incompetent so-called parliamentary expense committee. Watch this space.

46.Readers Digest - scam or offer?

2009-08-13T10:07:00.009+01:00

Some weeks ago Readers Digest wrote to warn me that an important letter would arrive and I should not ignore it.
Sure enough, within days a large envelope arrives. It was marked 'important', and 'approved release'. A sticker saying 'Urgent',and 'time-sensitive' was stuck on it at an angle - except that it was part of the envelope's printing - as was the 'postage stamp' and its cancellation. All along the back flap it was stamped 'secured' . By that time I was getting really excited.
In his enclosed letter Jeremy Jacobs, the Readers Digest finance director, told me that if I should win, anything from £250,000 down to one thousand prizes of £10 each, the provisional payment date was 14th August 2009.
There was no cost involved to me: a reply-paid addressed return envelope was enclosed for my response. Except that there were two envelopes: one, the 'YES' envelope, if I agree to examine, on 7 days' approval and with no obligation to buy, a marvellous book, for which Readers Digest are anticipating a high demand - 'it will be a best-seller'. Furthermore, if I said 'YES', I could also win a car.

I could hardly contain my excitement. In fairness, if all I wanted was to win one of the cash prizes, without buying the book, Readers Digest offered a response using the other envelope, marked 'NO'.

Readers Digest are on to a winner here: every 'YES' response is a book sale of £14.99 [plus postage], whereas all the 'NO' envelope can go straight in the shredder - unopened. And although all the prize money has been 'deposited in the bank', it might not all be won. Also, I'm being kept in the dark about the method of the prize draw, and there is no way of enquiring afterwards.

I'll let you know in a few days.

45.Arafat.

2009-08-10T16:29:00.012+01:00

The daily Israeli web programme 'Arutz sheva' [channel seven] published these charming pictures with the news that the Fatah party, which is meeting in Bethlehem, accused Israel of being responsible for the “assassination” of Yasser Arafat, who died in 2004.

Arafat, the terrorist and winner of the Nobel prize, died after his physical condition had deteriorated quite rapidly. He was hospitalized in isolation for two weeks and died while being treated in France. The shroud of security and secrecy at the time, and since, have prevented any medical facts from being known.

I had followed the story at the time and I was convinced that he had died from AIDS. Comments by many readers in 'channel seven' now confirm my diagnosis. Arafat was a paedophile, and one of these Arab 'rent boys' supplied by his entourage infected the old goat.

Significantly, his widow had avoided any physical contact with him towards the end. She and her daughter, [of questionable paternity], continue to live in luxury in France - financed by the vast wealth that Arafat stole from the Palestinian people.

One aspect of Arafat's cause of death has puzzled me. No Israeli spokesperson has given the true information, about Arafat's AIDS - although it is obviously correct. But this is in line with the chronic deficiency of Israeli counter-propaganda. For many years, their arrogant attitude seems to be that as long as Israel is in the right (in their opinion), they can ignore what other people think or say. But that is a great mistake: it corrupts world public opinion and the Arabs cunningly exploit it all the time. After five years they have resurrected lies about Arafat's 'assasination' in the full knowledge that Israel will not bother to tell the truth.

44.Israel Visit

2009-08-02T12:28:00.031+01:00

It's high time that I wrote a blog again - for the benefit of my 2 readers!

Ruth has her vacation in July and she agreed to be the driver of our hire car.
Also in July the tenth season of archaeological excavations took place on the Hellenistic-Byzantine city of Sussita [Hippos]. It is one of the Decapolis [look it up in Google] and the dig is led by Professor Arthur Segal who is a friend. Sussita is just behind Kibbutz Ein Gev, east of the sea of Galilee, and my 93 year old cousin and his family live in Ein Gev. Ruben is my favourite relative, but he is now frail and in the kibbutz's sheltered accommodation. It was time to visit him. So far he has retained his former 'house' - and towards the end of my blog the significance of this situation will become clearer. We stayed there for the duration.

The plane for our night flight including some 15 or 20 noisy teen age girls, stimulated by a couple of boys. Their shrill American accents persisted all night, and we got no sleep whatever.

En route to Ein Gev we visited Judith's cousin Yona in kibbutz Ramat David. When my late mother lay for many weeks in Affula hospital, having broken her femoral shaft on the road outside Ramat David, Yona visited her with devotion at least twice a week - by 2 buses each way. After almost 60 years of marriage, Yona's husband died last year. She still works in the kibbutz's disabled and dialysis unit.

Our next stop along the way was at moshav [seach in Google] Tel Adashim, to see Eva. Her father was a brother of my maternal grandfather - work it out. He was an ordained rabbi in Bohemia and escaped with his family to Palestine around 1940. But he was not orthodox enough for the bigoted Jerusalem rabbinic authorities and those bastards rejected him. To eke out a living he peddled chocolate, sweets and shoelaces from house to house.

Some two years ago Eva lost her husband, a farmer in Tel Adashim. She became very depressed. But by the time we visited she seems to have rallied a bit. She has a resident Phillipino help, whom she does not like - perhaps a good sign of her lessening depression.
One of their 2 sons manages his late father's farm. They have cattle and he has installed an automatic machine that entices cows in sequence to enter a milking device. Very clever.

Then onward to Ein Gev. The haze spoilt our beloved view of the lake during the descent to the sea of Galilee. We were expected there and welcomed. Radio-controlled barriers have been installed on the internal roads to keep out unauthorized cars. In the afternoon we began to catch up on our sleep deficit - aided by the 2 hour time difference. The temperature was around 40 Celsius by day, and not much less at night. How did they cope [and work] before air conditioning?

There has been severe drought in the last five years. The level of the sea of Galilee has dropped disastrously and a wide dry shoreline is exposed. The single bonus is the archaeology of the many ancient anchorages that surround the lake. But the water no longer emerges into the Jordan. It has to be pumped up into the site of tourists' baptism ceremony! Beyond, only sewage flows down towards the dead sea - whose lower third is now dry. When we were in Jordan we were told of a project, agreed by the countries concerned, to pump sea water from the red sea down (!) to the dead sea, also generating electricity. But sea water is corrosive and they could not predict the project's time scale.

Israel ought to stop pumping the sea of Galilee dry for agricultural irrigation, but concentrate on technological industries. As someone said, if water is scarce, 'you cannot make the desert bloom'. At the same time, massive investment in de-salination of sea water should have been started years ago. Sea water and sunlight are abundant and the technology does exist. The problem lies in the myopic short-term policies of governments, that cannot think beyond their popularity for the next election. It needs a dictator: King Herod would have done it differently.

The next planned activity was to visit Sussita. Due to the heat the professor and his team work from 05.15 to 12.00, Sunday to Thursday. For some years now, Friday in Israel is like Saturday here.
We set off at 6.00, accompanied by Zvi. The road from the kibbutz to the start of the ascent to the site is less than 2 miles long, but on the way back he cheerfully revealed to us that this road had been constructed in 1948 by the Israel Army and not by the Public Works. Therefore it was unauthorized and is prohibited to all vehicles. I did see the large sign. Sometimes a police patrol waits around the corner to intercept motorists and fine them. We were lucky. Possibly the police stayed away while the excavation is in progress.

It was a cloudy morning. Obviously no rain was expected, but at least there was no direct sunshine. Lucky again. I have the feeling that the steep path from the road to the plateau is getting steeper every year.

Professor Segal was supervising a bulldozer that was clearing a large mound of rocks. For some mysterious reason, the Israel army had piled them there, ignoring the exciting presence of a semicircular structure - a small theatre or odeion. Only the lowest courses have survived, but they show remarkable precise dressing - as good as any at the time.
When Sussita was first conquered from the Syrians' occupation in 1948, the Israel army built defensive fortifications that caused a great deal of damage to the ancient structures. Normally, every Israeli is an amateur archaeologist - but not that lot, apparently.

Detailed reports of the excavations are published annually by Haifa University: they are models of clarity and punctuality. Five churches have been found and excavated, including some lovely mosaic floors that have been restored. A beautifully paved main street = cardo, runs east to west along the ridge. As usual, the paving slabs are laid diagonally, to prevent cart wheels from getting caught. There are several side roads [singular = decumanus], a forum with a monument [formerly erroneously thought to be a nymphaeum], with a water cistern below it with a vaulted barrell roof and steps leading down, and an agora. The sophisticated water supply to Sussita has been extensively researched and published. It reached the summit across the saddle and up the slope through a syphon of tubular collared basalt links. A major earthquke in 749 caused severe damage to it and 'flattened the town. The site had to be abandoned and was not resettled - invariably a boon for archaeologists.

There are three major obstacles to the development of the site as the major tourist attraction, that it deserves to be after 10 seasons of expert excavation and restoration:

a. The steep access to the plateau requires a funicular. That is an expensive project to construct and to run. A cable hoist was costructed by the Israel army in 1948 for the hoisting of supplies [but not personnel] for their garrison at the top. At that time, the surrounding area of the side slopes, where the road now runs, was in Syrian hands.

b. No synagogue, or other Jewish remains have been found; and Jesus never climbed up to Sussita from the seashore, where he expelled demons out of lunatics: his absence is a tragic oversight of the Gospels. So there is little attraction for religious tourists. Archaeologists are not likely to visit in sufficient numbers either.

c. At present there is still a risk that Sussita might be ceded to the Syrians in a final peace settlement.

And then there's the heat...

Ruth and I invited all our relatives to a meal in the famous fish restaurant. It's air conditioned but that Friday evening there were no other tourists. The food was excellent and I'm proud of having thought of it - particularly as it was very successful and enjoyable. But then our Ein Gev family are extremely nice. My cousin Ruben was one of the early settlers. He would have been classed as a founder except that he was a metal worker and it took time for his lathe and equipment to be transferred to the new 'stockade and tower site. He was in charge of the water pumps and other motors. Before the days of ear protection from acoustic trauma he tragically became profoundly deaf. I well remember my early visits, when the engines generated an explosive 'bang' once a second continuously, day and night. Of course, Ruben took part in the conquest of Sussita from the Syrians in 1948. Later he was also area security commander.

Ruben's wife died 10 years ago. It was a very hard blow. His 3 daughters and son and their families rallied round and they continue to support him lovingly.
This is the first occasion when we did not visit the kibbutz cemetery. It was too hot and he is quite frail. Also buried there are my aunt Martha - Ruben's mother, and one grandson who was killed in an accident while serving in the army. It is beautifully maintained.

Ruben's son Danni came to see us. He is an ex-fighter pilot, now at El Al. On a previous visit he was captain of our plane and we were allowed in the cockpit to watch the landing. Lately he also has a part time government job to upgrade the airline's neglected security ratings - before El Al lose their landing rights in the US.

Oded, his wife Adi and their lovely three sons came at the weekend. It was an aftermath for Oded's birthday. As the father of 3 daughters, I had offered Oded some help if they wanted a daughter next. But he was not convinced.

Most kibbutzim are losing their traditional communal character - including Ein Gev. Food has been privatized. In the dining hall at each meal members and their guests register all their chosen items and their budget is debited. So nobody has to subsidized other members' guests. To economize, the dining hall is shut at times of poor attendance, such as weekend breakfast. There is a grocery store instead - for payment. At Ramat David the process has gone further: members have to pay if they want help with gardening or for mowing the grass around their house.

Traditionally, a member who leaves the kibbutz or dies can leave no real estate to their descendants or beneficiaries - it all reverts to kibbutz ownership. But just these very days Ein Gev is voting on approving the private ownership of their members' houses. It is likely to be agreed. - Thus Tel Katzir south of Ein Gev, for example, 'is no longer a kibbutz'. The important question in Ein Gev is the 'operational date' for this decision. The longer it is postponed, the more elderly members will die, depriving their descendants of their inheritance.

The last event of our visit was an invitation by Ruthi, one of Ruben's daughters, to a 'son et lumiere' performence in the archaeological site of Bet Shean = Scytopolis - another decapolis city [ I know - that's a tautology]. A 10 minute presentation projected onto the back wall of the theatre was followed by a guided tour around the large excavated and restored site. But I do have to criticize, and the guide agreed with me that to leave the unique public latrine unlit was a mistake. The performances are held every summer night since 2006.

Our visit to this event emphasizes the crucial help that Ruth gave me during our visit. My balance is getting deficient and I had brought my stick to Bet Shean. The ground was quite uneven and it was not well lit. Ruth always hovered by me, in case I stumbled or fell. She must have been anxious - even though nothing happened. My memory is getting patchy. Ruth remembered the times of arrangements and even one or two tricky parts of our route - even though I was the actual map reader and navigator. Ruth's driving - on the opposite side of the road to ours - was impeccable. In short - I could not have managed the visit without her.

By driving back straight to the airport on 'route 6', the toll road, one saves time and hassle. But there is not a single petrol station on that road, or at the airport. We did not have time to exit and search, and so we had to return the car 'unfilled' and they charge extra for this.

Still, we had no accidents, no collisions and no breakdowns. No swine flu or other upset. And it was not a night flight back. All in all it was a very successful visit.

43.More Web Scams

2009-03-27T11:07:00.007Z

When I mentioned swindles on the web and complained about the absence of Viagra offers, I did not have to wait long. The following day, the following tried to tempt me:

UN. NATIONAL LOTTERY .

Your EMAIL ID, Has won 1,500.000 GBP in the second category of our lottery
draws. Contact our Claims Agent: Dr.Brandon Drake mail: globalmaxfinanc@aol.com
with your full names, age, country, occupation, Telephone/Fax Number, For your WINNING claims procedures.

Sincerely
Terry Anderson

- Does Kofi Annan know about this use of UN money??

But more tempting was the following mis-spelled notice, from Ken Myles:
''We Guuarantees bigger pen-nis''

M	Would you like to have a brand new penis without having to go trough a dangerous and costly surgery? New pills where discovered that will save your time, money and first of all - health. M qc ax Ge br ntl gbj em rt an has absolutely no side effects as it contains only herbal ingredients. We offer it - you try it!
A
X

CLI oan CK HE qa RE!!!

Are you convinced?

42.Swindlers on the web

2009-03-24T21:22:00.008Z

This morning I received the following three emails:

Alliance & Leicester Confirmation Form

Dear Alliance & Leicester customer,

You have received this alerting message, as you are listed to be an Alliance & Leicester Internet banking user.

We would like to inform you that we are currently carrying out scheduled maintenance of banking software, that operates customer database for Alliance & Leicester Internet banking users. Customer database is based on a client-server protocol, so, in order to finish the update procedure, we need customer direct participation. Every Alliance & Leicester Internet banking customer (business and personal) has to complete a Alliance & Leicester Confirmation Form. In order to access the form, please use the link below. The link is unique for each account holder and expires within a certain period of time. If you don't fill in Alliance & Leicester Confirmation Form before your unique link expires, the system will automatically send you a new notification message.

Alliance & Leicester Confirmation Form

Thank you for your cooperation. We apologize for any inconvenience brought.

Alliance & Leicester plc is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority.
Our FSA register number is 189099.
Alliance & Leicester plc, Registered office :
Carlton Park, Narborough,
Leicester LE19 0AL.
Company No: 3263713. Registered in England.

And:

Subject: You Have 1 New Message

Egg Message Center

Welcome to "My Message" Service,

A New message Of deposition has just been sent to your Egg online Message Center and here is an alert to inform you that you have 1 new message from Egg Account Message Center. Egg UK customers may use this service to contact us with enquiries regarding your accounts or the products and services we offer. From time to time, we will also use 'My messages' to contact you. This may be in relation to existing products and services which you have with us or to keep you informed of enhancements to our products and services. Be sure to check 'My messages' regularly for any new messages. 'My messages' will only retain 10 messages so you may want to delete those you do not need. Click to view 'My Message" to read your new messages now.

I phoned Alliance and Leicester, who confirmed that it was a fraudulent message and I should delete it.

With EGG we do not have an account. So I deleted that too.

I also received the following third email:

WINNING NOTIFICATION
From: Ms. Cynthia Chalkie
Canada Lottery/Ontario 49 Soccer World Cup 2010 Promotional Draw
1550 Princess Street
Kingston, ON, Canada, K7M 9E3
Attention: Customer AFRSA680 A
Ref: EAAL/851OYHI/08
Batch No. Ontario 49

FIND THE ATTACHED LETTER BELOW

WINNING NOTIFICATION

The Canadian Government sponsors this lottery for the promotion of the 2010 Soccer World cup to be hosted in South Africa. We happily announce to you the draw of the Special Global 2010 World Cup Promotional Draw held on the WEDNESDAY MARCH 18 2009 in Essex United Kingdom and Ontario Canada. Your e-mail address attached to Ticket Number: B9564 75604545 100, with Serial Number 46563760 drew the winning numbers Wed Mar 181 2 8 14 28 48
with a bonus Number 44 for Ontario 49 Lotto under the choice of the lottery in the 2nd category of bi- weekly six. You have therefore been approved to claim a total sum of US$1,000, 000.00 (One Million United States Dollars) in cash credited to file EAAL/851OYHI/08. This is from a total cash prize of US $130,000, 000.00 Million dollars, shared amongst the first One Hundred and thirty (130) lucky winners in this category Worldwide.

Please note that your lucky winning number falls within our Afro booklet representative office in Africa as indicated in your electronic play coupon, because this particular draw was selected to promote the 2010 World Cup to be hosted in South Africa hence your winning information must be kept to enable you participate in our subsequent draws which will see 500 participants traveling on an all expense paid trip to South Africa for the Soccer World Cup 2010. In view of this, your US$1,000,000.00 (One Million United States Dollars) will be released to you by an accredited commercial Bank in South Africa. Our African agent will immediately commence the process to facilitate the release of your funds as soon as you contact our African Agent's office. All participants were selected randomly from World Wide Web site through computer draws system and extracted from over 10,000,000 companies and personal e-mails. For security reasons, you are
advised to keep your winning information confidential till your claims, is processed and your money remitted to you in whatever manner you deem fit to claim your prize.

This is part of our precautionary measure to avoid double claiming and unwarranted abuse of this program by unscrupulous elements. Please be warned!
To file for your claim, please contact our corresponding payment Agent in South Africa immediately you read this message for quick and urgent release of your fund, contact information is as follows:

MR. SEASON RICHARD.
TEL: +27-79-64444-37
CONTACT EMAIL IS: uk_ml005@hotmail.com

To avoid unnecessary delays and complications, please quote your reference numbers in any correspondences with our designated agents. Congratulations! Once more from all members and staff of this program that has ensured that you won this competition.
Thank you for being part of our Promotional Lottery program.
Yours Sincerely,
Ms. Cynthia Chalkier
NOTE to confirm that you have the winning number for the
Wed Mar 18 2009 draw, do confirm under Ontario 49.
http://www.canada.com/findit/lotteries/results.aspx?id=8

As you will realize, this scam has grammatical errors.
I feel insulted and shall resist the million dollar temptation. I deleted it.

For the last few months I no longer receive emails advertising VIAGRA. Why???

My blog post 'A Cautionary Tale' (05.09.2008) on a similar subject has received three comments:

The Redundant Girl said...: Thank you for posting this - I received one of these letters today, as part of a something I ordered. I am always wary of these types of things so didn't pay any heed to it until a friend said I should check the club out. I Googled them and came across your post which confirmed my suspicions. Thank you for taking the time to post it as I'm sure it's a warning for other people.
Su said...: I too received a letter offering a 'free' gift. I checked google and came across your comments - I will now put the letter in the bin. No-one should phone for these prizes - it's all a con - the more people know to ignore these letters, the better.
And Anonymous said...: I just received a Loyalt Awards letter in my Sky Magazine bundle. I was quite tempted thinking this might for once be genuine "I had definitely been selected", but before calling decided to google as inevitably all these letters and any chain letters received by email are ALWAYS scams. Glad I did, just saved myself £15.

So there is some benefit from publicising these scams!
Keep suspicious and be safe!

41.In Memory of Zvi Alexander

2008-11-30T15:47:00.009Z

(Zvi is on the right. Photo: Ze'ev Galibov)

Zvi Alexander passed away two days ago in Switzerland after suffering excruciating back pain for many weeks. He was 86 and was being treated for widespread cancer, but his physicians were unable to find a cause for the back pain, or to give him sufficient help. From a distance, this was most frustrating and perplexing to me. Through my occasional phone calls I could feel his gradual deterioration, but his mind remained crystal clear. I am not sure how much the cancer responded to the treatment, but the final heart attack would have been a merciful and rapid relief.

I became aquainted with Zvi at the Palestine-Israel philatelic meetings, when these still took place at the Victory Club. Whereas I was an amateur, he was clearly a top expert of Holy Land postal history from Turkish times to the War of Independence. His knowledge was phenomenal. His wisdom and wealth enabled him to create an outstanding collection and he reaped the top prizes at exhibitions. This is now housed at the Ha'aretz Museum in Tel Aviv (see: 'A New Book' 09. 06. 08). Despite all this, and his high former position in Isreal business management, there was not a trace of elitism or snobbishness about him. He was always very friendly and he had a marvellous sense of humour.

I was at the time editor of the Palestine-Israel philatelic Bulletin, to which he contributed occasionally. By chance, one day, Zvi discovered my past history and decoration in the Israel Army (See 'Nuqueib' 26. &27. 04. 08). My senior army medical officer at the time, Gillon, is one of Zvi's good friends and his medical advisers. Later, for a time, I was able to help Rachel with a medical problem - a sign of his trust.

One day in 2000 Zvi showed me the manuscript of his memoirs about his directorship of Israel's oil industry. I found it fascinating. The book was published in Hebrew, but I suggested that he ought to publish it in English. Twice, Zvi angrily rejected examples of the translated English versions that had been produced by the Gefen Publishers in Jerusalem - they failed to preserve the nuances of Zvi's Hebrew style. We solved the problem with the help of modern technology. Gefen e-mailed me their proposed English translation, chapter by chapter. By reference to the published Hebrew text, and knowing Zvi, I would modify the English style - including the technical details of oil exploration. This I then emailed to Zvi. There would then follow a very long phone conversation between us to sort out Zvi's misgivings. Once it was all agreed, I would email the final version to Zvi, and back to Gefen for type setting.

I advised Gefen not to touch chapter 9: it dealt with Zvi's family, and it had already been 'edited' by them - Shaula and Kobi and even Rachel, I think. All ended well. The book "OIL - Israel's Covert Efforts to Secure Oil Supplies" appeared in 2004. But it is really of interest mainly to readers who know about Israel's personalities of the 1950s to 1970s. At my request, Zvi did not mention my work - it was purely technical and linguistic. Zvi gave me a generous and practical present.

Zvi's phenomenal memory and lucid style did not seem to diminish with the years. The book reflects Zvi's immense hard work and tenacity - qualities that he demonstrated in all his many fields of activity. Although Zvi encountered some unsavoury charachters and suffered occasional disappointments, he was never bitter in his comments.

When he told me the diagnosis of cancer, we both knew that the outlook was bleak. He said, "this is not the end that had I envisaged." None of us did.

May his memory be for a blessing.

40.Cheating by car insurers

2008-11-30T12:20:00.009Z

A month after our collision we were informed, that the other side have admitted liability for the accident. The justice of my case was obvious, and although we were quite shaken, we did obtain the particulars of the other driver and of two independent witnesses. Taking this step had been absolutely essential. But we did not record the details of the police who had attended - and they did not point out the need to do so for filling the subsequent claim form. That was very unkind of them: we had no experience of such an accident situation in almost 50 years of driving. Luckily, Ilford Police were later able to supply the details from their computer record.
Combined with my detailed description and sketch of the event, this favourable result, of the other side's admission of liability, was to be expected. So we have no excess to pay the insurers, and our no-claim bonus is unaffected. That leaves the question of the value of our damaged car - and the dishonesty of our insurers.

We were informed, that the value of our 11 year old car was less than the cost of its repairs as estimated by the engineer from the repair garage. Therefore the car was a 'total loss'. I asked, whether the repairs could be done more cheaply with non-Toyota parts, thus avoiding this total loss situation. Our insurers replied that by the terms of my policy they were not allowed to do this. Later I discovered from my policy, that this was a lie: If a car is more than 3 years old, they can decide to repair it with parts which have not been made by Toyota.

So why lie? Our friend the car engineer later explained to us the reason for this insurers' scam: They will remove my car 'to scrap', but actually repair the car much more cheaply, using non-Toyota parts, re-register it, and sell it to an unsuspecting new customer, while I lose out and have to buy a new car.

Next we discovered that my insurer's 'Total Loss Handler' was trying to cheat us. He wrote that my car 'has been valued' at £900. But I had been warned by half a dozen friends not to accept the first valuation. So I sent him particulars of 5 cars, similar to mine in make, model, age and mileage. All were priced higher by £300 or more. The 'Total Loss Handler' replied that I might have falsified the data that I had submitted: he required copies of actual advertisements. He claimed that the pre-accident value of my car 'had been professionally calculated'. So I in turn requested proof of his 'professional calculations'. I had not lied - but he probably had.

Three weeks later he had not replied with proof of his valuation. I sent him the required copies of five actual advertisements, again at least £300 dearer than his valuation of my car. I suspect that the insurance's 'Total Loss Handler' actually benefits from cheating me. Either he pockets part of the underpaid compensation, or it helps his promotion and bonuses from the company.

I only hope that I shall have no future use of the experience that I have gained in dealing with these crooks after my accident.

39.Our Collision - Part 2

2008-11-02T21:40:00.007Z

.
We are insured to receive a 'courtesy car' similar to ours, if ours cannot be driven. So we requested it for Friday, between 9 and 11 am. When it had not arrived after 11 am, I phoned and was told that the traffic was heavy but he was 'near you'. That was a lie. He finally arrived another 4 hours later, without any messages in the meantime. We were told, that 'there was a fault with the car and they had to replace it'. - Perhaps.

But instead of a 1.3 liter petrol, it was a grey Volkswagen 2 liter diesel 'monster'. The photo is from our upstairs window. It is appreciably bigger, and much more difficult to reverse into our drive from the narrow road and parked cars. Tomorrow I shall try to ask for a smaller replacement.

My impatience was due to my need to reach the post office that day, to post back [certified] to the DVLC our written-off car's tax disc before the end of the month - for a refund of the unused next 3 months. Not that the insurers advised us on this. I thought of it and they confirmed. One more day, and a whole month's tax would have been lost.

Mind you, it's a nice car. Heated leather seats, and most controls are by push-buttons. There is no hand brake lever - just a button. There is no gradual release: this makes it difficult when starting uphill, in case it rolls back into the car behind.

On the following day, Saturday, we were due to drive to Heather to celebrate Judith's birthday. But Ruth and Andy very kindly offered to give us a lift in their car, to avoid the stress of driving the 'monster' on the North circular, and returning in the dark. On the way back, the weekend traffic was extremely heavy. The return journey home took twice as long, and likewise their drive from us to their home. It took them a total of 4 hours on the road - through constant heavy rain.

We have started researching for a replacement car, and the insurers will no doubt make us an offer for our written-off car. Everybody has stressed, that their initial offer will be too low. We shall have to haggle. The saga continues. .

38.Our Collision

2008-10-27T19:31:00.009Z

Yesterday (Sunday) afternoon we were driving back home after visiting Heather. The North circular was busy but flowing. Around 5 pm [it was getting dark] at Telford Road a car emerged quite fast from a side road on our right - Bexhill Road. It did not slow at the exit from the side road, nor for the traffic on our side, which it clearly wanted to join. I braked and swerved into the adjacent lane to my left. But it was not enough. My front right wing collided with his front left wing. Our tyre burst and the metal wheel was deformed [see photo]. His car had similar damage on his front left wing and wheel.

Neither car was drivable, and the stranded cars had narrowed the gap for traffic from 3 lanes to one single lane. The traffic in both directions slowed to a trickle - a major blockage. We were quite shaken, but had the presence of mind to ask 2 of the passing drivers who had seen the collisin to give us their particulars. And Judith exchanged names, addresses and car numbers with the other driver.

Someone phoned the Police but despite their sirens and blue light, it took them about half an hour to reach us through the blockage. At the time Judith was OK. [Only later did she report an ache in the front of the chest - clearly from the seat belt. There was no increased pain on breathing or coughing or movement, and I could find no bruising, and no tenderness suggestive of an injured rib / costal cartilage. I thought that our GP was very unlikely to order an Xray, and there were no tangible medico-legal implications or need for treatment.] I told the police who arrived, that nobody had been injured, whereupon they were only interested in directing the North Circular traffic past us, into alternate flows. They took no particulars and did not issue us with a reference number [as our insurer asked about next day]. Some 10 minutes later another police car arrived - to tow each of the 2 cars into the side road and free the North circular for its normal traffic. They advised everybody to exchange particulars - which we had already done.

We phoned the RAC and it took them another full hour, or so, to reach us. It was getting cold, but luckily it did not rain. Our car was loaded onto the RAC's transporter lorry and we rode home in his cab, as we were insured to do. He had a SatNav which navigated very well. Due to parked cars, he had to unload the car in the road, in order to drive it into our forecourt. But first he changed the damaged wheel for our spare - and this is shown in the photo above. We later heard that it is illegal to drive on a damaged wheel - even though it was a distance of just 5 metres.

The other driver had phoned not the RAC or AA but his insurer. They also loaded his car, but took it to a nearby parking lot overnight. They had not asked for trasportation, as they had been visiting friends in Bexhill Road. We could have done likewise, contacting our insurer, but by chance we chose the better option by letting the RAC get us straight home to deal with the aftermath.

We had notified Heather while we were waiting for the police. Once home, we phoned her again, and she sent a text message to Ruth, who was playing badminton. There was no [human voice ] reply from Daphne, nor the following morning, so I sent them an email.

We are friendly with the Nejads, who bought house no. 32 from us. We hold their key for their children, when they forget theirs. And they still forward out-of-date mis-addressed mail - nowadays just begging letters. As we waited for the police, who should greet me but Hamid, who had driven past and recognized the car. He had stopped and offered help, and to take us home. But with our RAC insurance there was no need, and I knew that it would take much longer - as it did.

Later in the evening I contacted my insurers [24 hours line] and started the ball rolling. They phoned back during Monday morning, taking all the details by phone. They arranged a visit from the chosen repairer. He arrived in the afternoon and took pictures and details. Tomorrow [Tuesday] we shall hear whether the estimated cost of the repair exceeds the current value of our 11-year old car - in which case the insurer will remove it and just pay us the current value. We are entitled to a replacement car - our insurer had put us in touch with their recommended hire firm, which is different from the repairer - but I suspect it will only be free, if the other driver's insurer admits liability. We shall sort it out.

We are also waiting to hear whether the other driver's insurer is accepting liability - it appeared to us, and to our insurer, to be so. They will obtain the evidence of our witnesses next and let us know.

It could have been worse - or better?

37.My New Face

2008-09-10T12:06:00.006+01:00

After 15 years, I have shaved off my beard - compare this photo to 'my image'.
So instead of sending dozens of emails to all and sundry, this post will inform anybody who is interested - maybe all 6 of them!

In 1993 we spent a holiday on a couple of gulegs off the western Turkish coast. The pre-trip instructions did not mention the different voltage on the boat - incompatible with my electric razor. So instead of buying a Gillette razor locally, I decided to 'let it grow'. The 18 fellow travelers were all strangers, and Judith did not mind [see below].

There were some other problems. Peter Reynlds, the tour director, was a little odd. Although he flew with the group from London, and we all wore the yellow discs of ACE, he did not reveal himself until after arrival, when we had got out of the airport. And when he photographed any site, he made sure that no human beings appeared in the view. He died some years later.

Peter believed that we should have 'a relaxing time'. So he never told us the next item on the programme, or its timing, until we were ready to move off the boat. I found this very irritating. Also, he had no guiding license for Turkey and was liable to be denounced by jealous Turkish guides and arrested. So his explanations were given surreptitiosly, with one of us serving as lookout.

Our meals were prepared on the boat by the cook who was the captain's assistant. But one of our group could not eat onions - which is vital in salads. On the second day luckily I had the simple idea of asking for a small dish of chopped onions, that we could add individually to our food.

I did not enjoy the tour. While we were sailing between sites, I could not sunbathe - I would have burned. Nor could I read - motion sickness prevented it. And when we were moored in the evening, the electric light in our cabin was not sufficient for evening. And we were asked to be economical with the boat's battery power.

Our cabin had an annoying smell of sewage. Clearly there was a leak from the sewage container on the boat back to the toilet. And they emptied the sewage during the trip illegally, within territorial waters. When the [British] owner visited us on the last day, his reaction to deny it was as offensive as the smell. But I am sure that I was right.

One of our group was a retired GP - he and his wife were very pleasant people. He mentioned that he had an aching neck, and I suggested the use of a collar to restrict movement. He was well and active, but several months later I read his obituary in the BMJ. I wrote to his wife and she told me that he was found to have cancer of the pancreas. So it was a secondary in the cervical spine as the first symptom - unusual.

At the end of the tour, I looked like Yasser Arafat with my stubble. When we got home, I was going to shave it off, but most people said that it 'looked nice'. So we bought a beard trimmer instead. With my bushy beard, and sparse hair on top, Heather remarked that I looked 'upside down'. But soon I removed the moustache. Trimming it accurately was tricky, food tended to catch in it, and I claimed that it interfered with my 'social contacts'.

So a few days ago I shaved it off. Judith came back from shopping, and we put away the merchandise. Then we had lunch. We chatted - I do not listen to the radio during meals. In the afternoon I emailed our daughters that my beard had gone - with a copy to Judith. That's when she first realized it...

None of our friends noticed it without being told. But they said that I looked younger. There were two adverse effects: shaving now took longer, and I actually bought a new razor. And people no longer offered me a seat on the tube. Ah well.

36.Fibromyalgia

2008-09-08T13:36:00.006+01:00

This morning on BBC 4 Woman's hour they broadcast an item on 'fibromyalgia'. I was puzzled and irritated, so before commenting I read the item carefully on Wikipedia.

In Britain apparently 2 percent of the population 'suffer' from it, and they are entitled to social security benefits. There are moves to make it legitimate in the European Parliament. But I suspect that if the Nazis had selected fibromyalgia sufferers to the gas chambers, every one of them would have done full work as a slave labourer instead: a perverse twist to their slogan: 'Arbeit macht frei ... von Fibromyalgia'. 'Work frees you from fibromyalgia'.

So there are more than a million sufferers in Britain, yet there are no clues as to the cause, or criteria for a diagnosis. Every medical test known to doctors will give normal results. Like other psychiatric conditions, proof of the illness relies on the verdict of the doctor - and this must be an enormous source of employment and income to many of my former colleagues. Cleverly, rheumatologists have not off-loaded fibromyalgia onto their psychiatric colleagues. Knowing that there is no physical abnormality whatever, makes it safe to 'treat'; and knowing that there is no cure, will justify prolonged 'treatment' despite its failure.

There is no effective treatment - except for psychiatric drugs and cannabis - but not apparently tested in double blind trials. Just boost your out-patient statistics, and collect your salaries or private fees...

The only reliable statistics claim that 9 women are afflicted for every man. There are no data on mortality - I bet that it does not shorten life. It would be interesting to learn what the incidence of this 'disease' is in primitive societies, and among refugees. Is there any fibromyalgia in Iraq? My biased view is that it is a psychiatric condition - invented less than 30 years ago - and it has become a true gold mine for doctors and patients. It's totally safe!

35.A Cautionery Tale

2008-09-05T20:52:00.007+01:00

We get several lists of cut price books - by post or email. When the price suddenly drops, there is probably a new edition on the way. One can compare their prices on various Amazon web sites: -.co, which is uk, -.com, which is US, and even -.de, which is Germany. I compare currencies and exchange rates and often I finally abandon my interest.
Virtually all these mailings include inserted leaflets with offers from other companies. But at our age, these offers are of no attraction.
There is Oxbow for archaeology, Post Script for art books and others, the British Museum bulletin, the Biblical Archaeology Review, and at the lower end of the market 'The Book People'. These latter have changed over time and now their offers are almost entirely of children's books and we have not ordered from them for some time. We watch out for their cheap offer of the London A to Z atlas, to update our own edition.

The latest posting from the Book People included an [unaddressed] circular letter from the Loyalty Awards Club, with a London address. 'As you may know', they wrote, 'from time to time we allocate a number of thank you prizes and awards to a limited number of selected recipients'. I should ring a premium rate number [at £1.50 per minutes, maximum 6 minutes] to listen to my Despatch Code and obtain my claim number. But the return postal address was not in London EC1 but in Weston-super-Mare.
My code was ...00075, and I had 'definitely been selected to be awarded a prize'. Electrical items required a payment of £6.50 for despatch and insurance. Judith and I both suspected fraud. If we did not receive the present, we would only lose £16.0 at most - provided we ensured that our premium rate phone call did not last longer than 6 minutes. But the Loyalty awards club would have a tidy income, possibly thousands of pounds from this one exercise.
We could not see how the hundreds of customers on the book people's mailing list could all receive an unsolicited present of up to £5,000.
To investigate the credentials of the loyalty awards club was the sort of job the BBC would undertake. As for us, we just needed to interrogate 'the book people', who had mailed the letter with their book list, on 0845 602 3030. Our local phone calls in Britain are free, but not o854. So I searched 'say no to 0845' and obtained the local number for the book people - 01248 679395. After a long musical wait they answered and said that they dealt only with orders for their books. They seemed to know of the loyalty promotion but suggested that I phone the Loyalty Awards Club. I suspect that they had been instructed to give this answer. I was sure that the Loyalty Awards Club would not admit to any irregularity, and so I demanded to speak to a manager of the book people.
They gave me the number, 0194 2721777 and a very nice lady from the management confirmed that I should not touch that 'loyalty' offer. The book people management team had been against this scheme and very many people had contacted them to complain, but her superiors had insisted on proceeding - they were of course paid a fee by the Loyalty Awards Club for including their 'award' letter in the mailing. She would pass my misgivings to her superiors.

Recently we heard from our friends, that they had received notification that they had won a huge prize on the Spanish lottery - el Gordo. They had never played that lottery, but they have a son in Spain, who immediately warned them that this was an attempted fraud.
From time to time I receive emails from UK banks, on what appears to be their genuine headed stationery. They need to update my particulars, and ask me to click on a web address to complete my details. However, with most of these banks we have no dealings; and sometimes the letter has grammatical errors. It is an attempted fraud.
More rarely, an email arrives from a lady in Nigeria. Her wealthy husband has just died, and she needs me to help her to transfer his enormous wealth out of Nigeria - into my bank account in Britain, of course.
Now if she was young, and had requested my help to provide her with an heir...

34.David and Bathsheba

2008-07-27T08:01:00.123+01:00

As I mentioned in my post of 12th July, there was not sufficient time during the Torah study breakfast to do full justice to my chosen second literary gem from the Bible. It is one of my favourite stories. And from the 14th century onwards, it inspired many illustrations - which I have collected. They give a very accurate idea of the opinions of the artists - and of the Church - about the Biblical text and its implications. Unfortunately, this blogger is very unfriendly to the inclusion of images. It required much cunning and hard work: the images had to be added in reverse order and it was very difficult to out-smart the rigid layout and text formatting...

Unlike the story of Bileam and his ass, which is a simple straightforward narration, the text of David and Bathsheba and their adultery leaves a great deal to our imagination and interpretation. To begin with, we are not told, that David was already married at least twice: to Michal the daughter of King Saul (although Saul had given her to another man while David was an outlaw fugitive), and to Abigail, the widow of the villain Naval (who had died of a stroke just after David had wished him 'long life and good health').

From his palace in Jerusalem, David watches an attractive woman having a wash:-

These images of Biblical pornography were very popular. The woman is certainly having her wash in public, and especially in full view of David. David is told that the woman is the wife of Uriah, his Hittite mercenary. Her name is Bathsheba = 'daughter of the [marriage] vow'.

We are told that these events took place in the spring, 'when armies go to battle'. That is when the ground has firmed after the mud of the winter rain; and when the farmers have time available to serve their king while they wait for their new crops to grow. David has sent his army to fight against the Ammonites. They are besieging Rabbah in Trans-Jordan, present-day Amman. Uriah the Hittite mercenary is also there. But David has remained in Jerusalem.

What he is watching from the palace is Bathsheba's ritual bathing at the end of her monthly 'uncleanliness'. She had observed the prescribed Biblical ritual. She had waited for seven days after the end of her menstrual flow and then she had washed. This has two implications:
First, if she just had a period, then she is not pregnant. But if her marriage to Uriah had not yet been consummated, then her new husband was exempt by law from military service [Deut. 20:7]. So, why did Uriah abandon his new bride, preferring the male companionship of his colleagues in the army?

And second, Bathsheba was advertising openly - as all the artists show - that she was now available for intercourse, without incurring the Biblical prohibition on sex during menstruation - which was a cardinal sin for both parties. Adultery was a lesser offence.
But why is she already fed up with her new husband? Had she been shocked to discover after the wedding, that Uriah was gay? In that case she was doomed. Homosexuality is 'an abomination', says the Bible. But no punishment is threatened: so all these elegant Anglican clergy are safe. But she would not be able to get rid of Uriah, as only the man could divorce his wife.

Who says, that the use of reflecting mirrors to enhance the appearance of the photo is a modern invention?

The three pictures above (two of them by Lucas Cranach), and the next few images, contain a pictorial euphemism: an innocent expression that has a much stronger hidden meaning:-
The woman is shown washing just her feet; but in the Bible 'feet' can be a euphemism for 'genitals' - and after her period, it is of course Bathsheba's genital area that had to be washed.

The same euphemism is also used in the story of Ruth the Moabite. She is advised by her mother in law, Naomi, to wash and perfume herself and to go that night to the sleeping Boaz, the wealthy landowner, to lie 'at his feet'. She is doing in Biblical Canaan, what Monica Levinsky did to Clinton in Washington some 2,000 years later. And the euphemistic 'feet' appear again later in Bathsheba's story - as we shall see.

As a result of Bathsheba's blatant naked publicity, David summons her 'to view his etchings over a cup of coffee', so to speak - exactly as she had intended.
Rembrandt portrays Bathsheba (modelled by his wife) twice. She is holding the king's letter of invitation, while she is having her 'feet' washed.

On the left, the ritual wash has turned into a party, watched by David at the back.

On the right, during the washing of 'the feet', Jan Steen adds an old woman - a common personification of lustful evil advice.
In most of the illustrations David is watching the delivery of his message, alone or with his courtiers. Often, he is wearing his crown and holding his attribute, a harp.

Here, David's invitation is being conveyed to the topless woman.
In Writing on the left, orally by a handsome courtier on the right.

I have found only one picture of Bathsheba climbing the steps to David's bedchamber. She is shown four times - finally on David's lap.
We have to imagine the rapidity of the actions: She came to him and he lay with her and she returned to her house. - So she consented immediately and it was just a quickie. But it fulfilled her purpose:

And the woman conceived - of course: it had been at the peak of her fertility - exactly mid-cycle. Again, we have to imagine the developments: she missed her period, her breasts enlarged, the area around the nipples darkened, and she was sick in the morning. So she sent and told David 'I'm pregnant'.
But do not expect any dialogue or interrogation: I would have asked, 'are you sure you're pregnant?' And: 'Are you sure that it's mine?' Possibly, the palace staff did investigate her claim to have a bun in the oven.

Instead, David immediately summoned the cuckolded Uriah back to Jerusalem. He questioned him about the army, and the war with the Ammonites. But although David advised him to ' wash his feet ' [genitals again!] and to go home to his wife Bathsheba, and even made him drunk, Uriah refused. I personally believe that he had heard about his wife's adultery from the palace staff, who would have enjoyed embarrassing the foreign mercenary with the juicy gossip.

Uriah stayed in Jerusalem for 3 days. He did not visit his wife. And she did not come to see him either. Perhaps this is another indication that their marriage had broken down. Perhaps Carmel, from the Jerusalem District Conciliation Service, might have been able to mediate?

Now if Uriah refused both available options, either to adopt his wife's pregnancy as his own, or to divorce her, then he knew that he was signing his own death warrant.

Rembrandt portrays Uriah being sent back to the battle. David, Uriah and the old secretary all know exactly what is in the letter that he will hand to his army commander: 'put Uriah in the front row of the battle, and then withdraw and leave him to be killed'.

The two gospel illustrations combine the naked Bathsheba exhibiting herself during her bath and watched by David, with the scene of her husband Uriah receiving the fatal instructions from the king.

Back at the battle scene, Uriah alone is not wearing armour.

The expected sequel is a brilliant parable. Nathan the prophet arrived and told David about one of his subjects, a poor man, who looked after a beloved lamb - his only possession.
His wealthy neighbour had guests, but instead of preparing one of his own sheep, he took and slaughtered the poor man's lamb.
David was outraged and blustered about punishment and compensation.
So Nathan told him: 'You are that man'.
And he informed David, that the baby that Bathsheba had conceived would die.

By then, Bathsheba had been told that Uriah had been killed in the battle.

So after the appropriate period of mourning, she became David's wife, and their next child was Solomon.

An exciting and touching story. I wish I could have written it.

33.The Silence of the Blogs

2008-07-24T08:22:00.015+01:00

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When we studied the Old Testament at school very many years ago, certain phrases stuck in our mind. One such appears in the description of the contest of Elijah with the prophets of Baal. It is a dramatic and amusing story. It is among the scenes preserved on the walls of the fourth century synagogue in Dura Europos. The pagan prophets are trying to invoke their god, but 'there was no voice, and no reply, and none to listen.'
(I R 18:29)
The fresco (above the pictorial dado) shows the prophets of Baal trying to cheat, by hiding a man under the altar to light the 'miraculous' fire. But a serpent is sent by god to kill him - a post-biblical addition. We were told by our teacher that this threefold lack of response was the greatest possible insult: there was no one even listening.

This absence of Baal's response brings me to my blog. Ruth installed a 'stat counter' for me, so that I can see how many people have looked at my blog either once, or more than once. The total is about a dozen per week. As Maureen Lipman in the BT advertisement would say, 'it's not exactly all the rage, is it?' Yet my blog gives my email, and you can even respond anonymously. In conversation, a few friends have told me 'by the way', that they do read my blog. And today, for the first time, Judith received an unsolicited comment from an 'avid reader'. Thank you, Shirley!
Maybe I should not grumble. We are all more likely to complain, than to praise. So no response is probably a good sign. And I would not like to receive a message from some solicitor saying,
'We are acting for XYZ, whom you have libelled in your blog of [date], etc'
I am cynical, outspoken, and not legally trained: that is a dangerous combination. So I'm careful. The nearest I have dared to come in previous blogs was the naming of two individuals 'whom I detest'. They cannot touch me for that; and I have plenty of dirt to dish about them if necessary, just in case.

Many years ago our eldest daughter earned some pocket money in the evenings by scanning the draft of The Times for libel or defamation before it went to press. But she is working hard nowadays, and I do not wish to involve her in any extra tasks. Furthermore, she does not actually read my blog, because she prefers messages to be directed to her explicitly. So when a post is relevant, I will attach it to an email.
Another reason not to involve her is because one should not deal professionally with one's own relatives - although I myself have totally ignored this principle, provided that it is within my medical competence: I even cut a sebaceous cyst out of a close relative's neck.

Blogs are impersonal and require some stimulus to invoke a response. Looking at the responses to my daughter's blogs, they are certainly a mixed lot. Some comments only signify that the blog has been read: 'ooh, ah!' - similar to the inane comments by 'MED, USA' about the Israel photographs in Arutz 7 on the web.

But emails are different. If I have a question or comment - I send an email message. This action will reveal the other phenomenon of those who do not respond. My most recent example is my critical blog about the book of Egyptian medicine [17 July]. It had an undeserved complimentary foreword by a Pennsylvania professor, Donald Redford. On Google, he was quite famous. So I emailed him, attached my post and asked him why he had not been more critical. My email did not 'bounce', but it was not acknowledged as I routinely request; and he has not answered. A number of reasons are possible, and replies are sometimes delayed. We shall see - and an addendum may follow.

Blogs are useful. Apart from giving me an outlet for venting my anger or for amusement, we now get much more day-to-day information about our middle daughter from her blog than from any number of enquiries by phone. So now we phone her not to ask, but to comment.

Emails are free: please do respond - anonymously if you wish. But remember: I know where you live!

32.The Happiness of our Leaders

2008-07-19T17:56:00.010+01:00

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Here is Ehud Olmert. At this moment, he is still prime minister of Israel. There are people who claim, that he is dishonest and has molested his secretary. With such a face? Never!!

Here are three images from our British Parliament: a youthful, almost juvenile, Alan Johnson. He is still our minister of health. To appear more mature, he has dyed his hair grey and painted rings under his eyes. Let us pray that he survives the re-shuffle.
He is flanked by the happy, almost ecstatic, images of Gordon Brown and Hazel Blears. They are both doing their best not to show their happiness. They must be thinking fondly of dear Tony and his brilliant transparent honesty.

Please print these pictures and frame them. You can hang them, or put them against the wall.
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31.A Poorly Written Book

2008-07-15T11:06:00.010+01:00

This is part of the book's dust cover:

'MEDICINE IN THE DAYS OF THE PHARAOHS'.

The French authors are Bruno Halioua, a dermatologist, and Bernard Ziskind, a cardiologist, both 'members of the French Society for the History of Medicine' - no qualifications for this membership are mentioned. The translator is M B DeBevoise.

Their research apparently started with an attempted explanation of the ten plagues of Egypt for their children during the Passover Seder. But most Biblical historians [except for the fundamentalist orthodox] now believe that the Exodus story is a myth - a fiction composed many centuries later to provide the Jews in Babylonian exile with a legitimate history. The ancient Egyptians kept no slaves except prisoners of war; and 600,000 Israelite did not escape en masse across Sinai to Canaan - which was under Egyptian control at the time anyway. And the volcanic eruption of Thera / Santorini does not fit the plagues' description either.

Furthermore, these authors clearly do not understand Biblical Hebrew, when they translate 'kinim' as mosquitos instead of lice, and plague as 'oth'. You can safely skip this chapter at the end of their book. The authors love to quote from old Fench authors' works, often without giving references. I call this sycophantic name dropping.

The text is not well organized. Each chapter starts with a fresh sequence of references. But in the list, the pages to which these references refer are not indicated at the tops. Footnotes would have been better.

Many important clinical and paleopathlogical findings are ignored - particularly the serological detection of Tb, leprosy and Bilharzia. And the two interesting cases of big toe prosthesis are not mentioned either. Nor is the image of gallstones shown. They do illustrate the limestone painting of a female acrobatic dancer but claim [without evidence] that she was a prostitute - and they ignore to mention her elongated limbs, probably due to arachnodactyly.

I'm not sure of the evidence, on which they base their description of spinal pathologies in embalmers as due to the need 'to lift corpses and to carry them up and down stairs'. Really??

The classical book on Ancient Egyptian Medicine is by John Nunn. This book is not remotely in the same class.

30.A Case of VISA Fraud

2008-07-14T17:15:00.011+01:00

Ten days ago we were due to see Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor at the Globe. Together with Judith, Daphne, Jeff, Ruth and Heather we had a meal at Strada restaurant near St Paul's. When it came to payment, the waiter brought the Visa device to our table for me to enter the pin. He tried three or four times with [apparently] different devices. Each time he said that the Tesco card was faulty. Finally I used a different card and it 'worked'. We crossed the Millennium bridge to the theatre. Being suspicious, I mentioned to Judith that we should check the Tesco visa account next day.

But before we did, Tesco Visa Fraud phoned. Of course, I phoned back to make sure that it was them. ' Had we withdrawn cash with our card?' - which we had not. Apparently we never use this particular card for cash withdrawals. So our account had been robbed, and we were told to destroy the cards and wait for replacements.
I subsequently found out from Tesco Visa Fraud that the cash withdrawal attempts had been made at Hammersmith. They got £100, which Tesco assured us would not be debited from us. But then, when they tried to withdraw £200, then £100, and £200 again, these further transactions were blocked. I was also told, that they had copied the magnetic strip data from my card and cloned it - they apparently did not need the pin, that I had to key into the device at the restaurant. This copying must have been done with one of the devices at the restaurant. It had been modified but I had not noticed. I would look more carefully in future!

I phoned the manager of Strada to inform him what had happened, and of my suspicion. Our only use of the card had been there. He was quite aggressive. They had some faulty devices but definitely honest staff. He denied any responsibility or interest and advised me to go to the police. So I suspect that he might be in on the scam.
I phoned the police who explained, that as I had not lost any money, I was actually not 'a victim': Tesco visa were the losers, and they would investigate if they wished. I'll wait to hear. It would be interesting to know the following:
# at what time after we had paid for our meal, had the cloned card been used?
# what are the home addresses of all the restaurant staff: any near Hammersmith?
# an inspection of all the card devices that are used at Strada - although I suspect that the 'faulty' device was quickly rotated to another premises - that's what I would expect them to do.

Within a week we received our new Tesco cards. We signed them, and phoned as instructed to activate them. I also phoned and was assured, that the pin for the new cards had not been changed.

But Judith returned from shopping [at Tesco!] to report that the new card had not been accepted at the till. So I phoned Tesco Visa. They confirmed that the card was valid, but that 'no transactions had been registered'.
To quote Ronnie Corbett on TV, I thought: 'Funny?'
On a hunch, while still on the phone, I turned the card over. There was no dark brown magnetic strip across the upper back of the card! The person at Tesco visa went to consult her supervisor. After some lovely Bach Brandenburg music, she returned. The cards that we had received were faulty. She apologized. I commented that if it was a faulty batch, they would get more complaints. I don't think that she was impressed.

She promised that we shall get replacements within 10 days. And by the way, She had some special offers for me from Tesco. I kept my cool and politely declined. It shows you that I have mellowed with age. I did not even tell her, that she couldn't possibly make me an offer that I really wanted... not over the phone. That would have turned a case of fraud into one of vice. It would have shocked my reader[s] - and Judith was listening across the landing!

29.An Update

2008-07-12T21:42:00.006+01:00

A mixed bag - but then I do not know what is of interest to my reader[s]. Judging by the Stat Counter, my popularity is not increasing. And I suspect that Mugabe, he who tried to rig the synagogue council election, only reads my blog [if he does] so that he can sue for defamation: I hear that he is 'very litigious'.

I met the new rabbi of Judith's synagogue who has just been appointed. A pleasant man with a good sense of humour and a beard: for me these are two important attributes. He told me about his dissertation for Leo Baeck college. A literature analysis of the Biblical episode, when Jacob's eldest son Reuben had sex with Bilha, one of his father's other wives. A very well researched and interesting paper on a topic that is obviously not represented in the Biblical illustrations that I collect.

He was kind enough to let me read his dissertation. I learnt a number of new facts - always an exciting event for me. Of relevance to other biblical episodes is the ritual Law, that if a wife had sex with another man [adulterous, rape or even while she was unaware - drunk or asleep], her husband was thereafter forbidden ever to have further intercourse with her. I reckon that if that law was truly kept, and known to the cuckolded man, it would sooner or later in their marriage force half the Jewish husbands to become celibate. Needless to say, the reverse does not apply: a cheated wife and an adulterous husband are allowed to resume their intercourse. Otherwise, most other husbands would have to become celibate too.

On Friday we were notified that Sheila Flashman had died. Although we knew about her carcinoma of the pancreas, and the chemotherapy, she had seemed to rally. Apparently the end was rather sudden. A merciful fact, but we never managed to say good bye. She had oncology privately and was given a 50:50 chance. From her description, I got a much more pessimistic impression. I fear that sometimes people with malignant disease are still given too optimistic an opinion for a variety of reasons. She was one of the founders of Redbridge U3A and did a lot of good work.
I used to neglect attendance at funerals. I felt that my efforts should be directed towards the living. But I have changed my attitude - the surviving relatives deserve my presence. So we shall go to Chesunt tomorrow.

Some weeks ago I agreed to conduct another Torah study session before the Shabbat Service at Judith's synagogue. Given the choice, I picked the episode of Balak, when the she-donkey had a conversation with Balaam [Numbers 22 onwards].
There had been good publicity, including the synagogue newsletter with a picture of a medieval woodcut from Nuremberg and a photo of me [only one of them showed the donkey]. Coupled with the rolls with salmon or chopped egg, some 20 people attended. It went very well.
I told them that these days, talking donkeys and talking serpents are only found in the house of commons. Balaam's description of himself as 'the man with the closed eye' enabled me to allude to an illustrious present-day 'prophet of prudence', Gordon Brown.

I knew that this episode would not fill the hour - particularly as I deferred part of it for the Torah reading during the service. Therefore I also prepared a contrasting story of David and Bathsheba [2nd Samuel 11 onwards]. Telegraphic in style, it has much scope for comments. I modernized Bathsheba's message to David, 'I'm pregnant' into an updated version of the 'bun in the oven': 'I've got a beigel in the microwave'. This story has plenty of sexy illustrations, and I suggested a future 'Oneg' - an hour's programme with slides after the Friday night service. I think they were tempted.

I also read from the Torah scroll during the service. As an ex-Israeli I am one of the people who can master the unpunctuated text without too many errors. Of the two people who were 'called up', the first was an Israeli boy of 13 who was celebrating his Bar Mitzvah in this way. Quite unusually, they had chosen this reform synagogue and had come from Ra'anana to London for a week to celebrate Alon's coming of age in this modest way. I understand that they had some diificulties with the email arrangements in English.
His father had been bullied by his own orthodox father and hated religion. Strictly speaking, of course, Alon would have become ritually responsible as an 'adult' Jew even without being 'called up'. He only recited the blessings before and after my reading, but his Hebrew reading of the punctuated few sentences was poor - he certainly had not been tutoured or prepared in any way. It will take another 5 years before he is allowed to cast his vote for that crook Olmert.

28.Last Night's Concert

2008-06-23T09:38:00.008+01:00

After a very long interval, we went to a 'live' concert last night. For years, I have preferred records and CDs: Near-perfect quality, in the comfort of my home, at a convenient time. Still, these were cheap tickets through the U3A, and it was an attractive programme - the LSO at the Barbican.

We sat at the back of the balcony, but the acoustics are very good - and I had not forgotten to bring my hearing aid. Some people had brought binoculars, but they are not essential for an aural gratification [as Humphrey Lyttleton would have double entendred it].
Anre Previn had obvious difficulty walking and climbing the half dozen steps to the stage. He used no cane but he used the bannisters on both sides, and he sat on a high stool to conduct. From the programme we learnt that he is 79 [or 78]. Viewed from the long distance of our seats, my impression was not of Parkinsonism - unless it was well controlled by medication. He seemed to have weak leg muscles rather than arthritis - maybe due to trapped lumbar nerve roots: I know the feeling from my own experience. I felt sorry for him, particularly when the applause forced him to negotiate the steps to the stage for a second and a third time.

The music was excellent. During the 4 years of my private violin tuition as a boy, I was given a version of Mozart's 'Eine kleine Nachtmusik' adapted for solo violin. My performance was abysmal, but it made me familiar with this lovely piece of music. My gross technical inability, coupled with my reluctance to prectise, and the fact that I did not have perfect pitch, finally convinced me to give up. And I was able to convince our children to choose instruments that had a fixed pitch, rather than string instruments.

Next came a Mozart symphony - number 39. Beautifully played and very enjoyable. I'm not sure how much the concert notes add to my enjoyment. I'm not a musicologist but I do remember beautiful tunes.
After the interval the Brahms violin concerto was played brilliantly by Anne-Sophie Mutter, who is described as very well known. I discovered on the web that she was Previn's fifth [and most recent] wife - until 2006. They are obviously still good friends - he has just written music that they will perform together. She played superbly and did not use a score - but Previn did. Apparently she '...takes special pride in performing contemporary compositions for violin.' Well, include me out of those.

We travelled by tube, of course. On Sunday one can even park the car at the station forecourt. We had chosen to get off at Moorgate - equidistant with Barbican station. It proved to be a lucky choice, because as we waited on the platform to travel home it was announced that a signal failure had stopped the Metropolitan line there. Fortunately, the Northern line also connects at Moorgate, and we could join the Central Line at Bank. Had we chosen Barbican we would have had much more trouble - particularly as I had not brought my usual folder of bus and tube maps.

Compared with listening at home, the outing adds more than an extra hour at each end, and dislocates supper. But at least it didn't rain and it wasn't cold. We shall probably go again...

27.Lucky Friday the 13th, and an enjoyable weekend

2008-06-16T11:40:00.011+01:00

Friday the 13th was certainly not unlucky. I had forgotten all about it and did not stay in bed. Then we had some good news, and like the old Jew in the Catholic church, "I am telling everybody". (if you do not know this joke, and you are over 18, ask me).

First thing, Ruth had received the exam marks for the spring semester. Professor Langley-Evans congratulated her. He told her that, 'once again, it was an amazing performance'. Ruth was top of the Biosciences students for year one (by a country mile), as she had been in the autumn semester.
She emailed us saying that she was so pleased, that she might not be able to squeeze her oversized head out of the building. I consoled her by pointing out that as a result, her hat would now be big enough to contain the entire week's shopping.

Then we heard from Heather, who is losing her job due to 'downsizing' at Camden. Gordon Brown needs all their money, to repair his idiocy with the 10p tax rate. So he has to squeeze the local authorities. Her employers and colleagues at Camden had been extremely generous as a token of their appreciation of her work there. Very heartening. My own pride is tinged with sorrow concerning the loss of the occasional lunches at her nearby Caf, where they serve excellent falafel...

It was David's birthday. Rather than possibly wake him up, we had phoned him the previous evening. Later Heather told us, that she had in fact woken him up - so we need not have worried.

Then we drove to Harlow for the Wansfell-2 weekend course on Symbolism in Art. It was an excellent series of slide talks and I learned much more than I had expected. Clare Ford-Willie knows her subject very well and spoke clearly and fluently, aided by abundant good slides. The fellow students were a nice bunch of people, including some former students from my own Wansfell courses. The good food included the customary treat of bacon at breakfast - not obtainable at home.

26.Egypt and Canaan

2008-06-10T20:32:00.010+01:00

Last night I attended a very good lecture at the monthly meeting of the West Essex Archaeology Group [WEAG] at Woodford County High school. I now only attend when the topic is of interest to me - and this certainly turned out to be most enjoyable. Using PowerPoint, Rachel Sparks from the Institute of Archaeology surveyed and illustrated the evolution of the links between Egypt and Canaan in the middle and late bronze ages [MBA & LBA], roughly the second millenium BC. She divided the period into three parts:

In the MBA I [= 2,000 - 1,800 BC] there were sporadic trade exchanges ['trading and raiding']. The route was overland along the 'way of Horus' and by sea - to the ports along the Levant coast. The Egyptians did not penetrate far inland. They still regarded Canaanite cities as potentially hostile, as evidenced by the execration texts: plaster effigies covered with the names of Canaanite cities, then cursed and smashed them. But bearded semitic men bearing merchandise were portrayed.

In the MBA II & III [= 1,800 - 1,200 BC], there was deeper Egyptian penetration inland, and an increase in trade and significant cultural exchange. At that time the Hyksos resided in the delta - foreigners probably from the Aegean. The delta site of Avaris was inhabited by Canaanites. Many storage jars of Canaanite origin were found there, whereas burials in Canaan contained many scarabs of Egyptian design - but often produced in Canaan. When skeletal remains could be analyzed, the male were often Asiatic/Canaanite and the females local Egyptians - there was intermarriage.

In the LBA [= 1,550 - 1,150 BC], the Egyptians actually conquered Canaan. The Egyptians mounted concentrated annual campaigns into Canaan, gradually extending their rule northward - despite a Canaanite revolt - the battle of Kadesh. The loot was taken back to Egypt, where such Items can be recognized. The siege of Askelon illustrates the action. In the delta, the Hyksos were expelled and all traces of their culture were obliterated. Tribute was also extracted from the conquered Canaanite cities. Loyal rulers were appointed by the Egyptians, and their sons were usually taken to Egypt as hostages. When these princes later returned home, they spread the Egyptian culture that they had absorbed. There is a theory, that Joseph was such as hostage prince. [ Incidentally, the Romans employed a similar method ].

Local fortresses in Canaan were built by local labour. Burials included antropoid coffins, that contained shabtis in the Egyptian style - so these were probably Egyptian dead. To remain in power, the Canaanite elite had to behave like Egyptians. Beit Shean was completely Egyptianized - they even imported Egyptian potters to work there. [ And I'm reminded of the Egyptian governors' style mansions at Dir es-Saidiyeh and Tel Afek - there must be others ].

The ethnicity of the inhabitants can be identified from various criteria: the images [beards, clothing, skin colour, tattoos], the texts and language, the names of individuals, and the style of their possessions.

The questions after the lecture confirmed my own views of the Biblical narrative. That part of the Old Testament was only written around the 5th century BC, or maybe later. The whole story, from the Patriarchs to Joshua's conquest, is a later 'spin'; the 'Apiru' that are mentioned in some extra-biblical texts refer to stateless vagabonds and terrorists, not to 'Hebrews'.
The topic of the Exodus was not mentioned at all in yesterday's non-Jewish forum. Its historical existence has now been convincingly rejected by contemporary scholars. Although Canaanites obviously resided in the delta at that time - during the LBA, they were not Israelite slaves. The Egyptians kept no slaves, except for prisoners of war. Public works were performed by 'corvee' labour - Egyptians who served the king during the period of the Nile's inundation, while these farmers could not engage in agriculture.
During the period of the postulated Biblical exodus, Canaan in the LBA was entirely under Egyptian rule: so where could Moses and the Israelites escape to?
The Old Testament is a very well constructed literary work. But I personally no longer celebrate Passover, its festival and its ceremony.
But then, I'm agnostic: I do look forward to encountering Tony Blair in Hell.

25.A New Book

2008-06-09T09:30:00.011+01:00

For over 50 years, Zvi Alexander has built up a most significant collection of Holy Land postal history - that is not just stamps but postmarks and entire letters and postcards. It is probably THE most important and comprehensive such collection in existence.
For the last 24 years Zvi has exhibited various parts of his collection internationally, and has been awarded Grand Prix and numerous large gold medals - the highest philatelic accolades.

Rather than selling his unique items, he has generously donated the entire collection to the Eretz Israel Museum in Tel Aviv on a 50 year loan. The museum's philatelic pavilion has been named after him and he has endowed it for onward displays and education.

To mark its opening earlier this year, the Museum produced a sumptuous glossy hardback catalogue. In some 200 pages it illustrates and briefly describes (in Hebrew and English) a selected fraction of these postal history items, beginning in the 15th century, through the Turkish post, the European postal agencies of Austria, Germany, Italy and Russia, to the British Mandate, and finally the war of independence in 1948. The postal items are linked by selected historical photographs and thus form a marvelous overview of the history of the country and its postal services.

Even for a lay person, the material provides a fascinating and vivid survey. But if you know the philatelic background, the wealth and quality of these items (not to mention their market value) are astonishing. Quite a number are described as unique - 'the only recorded item'. My personal friendship with Zvi has given me additional exciting insights into his hard work in locating, researching and acquiring these rare gems.

As Amazon would say, five stars plus!
It is sold at the Museum for 150 sheqel - about £23.

24.The General Medical Council (GMC)

2008-06-05T09:00:00.009+01:00

To practise medicine, doctors have to pay the GMC an annual fee, to remain on the Register. Only doctors who have no income from any source worldwide, including from pensions and investments, are exempt. But until now, no more payments were required after the age of 65, whether or not one engaged in gainful medical work. The GMC now claims, that the 2006 law against age discrimination prohibits them from exempting the over-65s.

So for the time being, the cunning lawyers and the greedy GMC councilors have actually been provided with a golden opportunity to rake in a great deal of extra money from elderly doctors.

In my opinion, the spirit of this law is intended to prevent older persons from being more disadvantaged, and not the reverse. To prove this and clarify the law would require very high and expensive legal authorities. I wonder: what about my old-age advantage of travelling free on London transport? And my exemption from prescription charges, and concessions on entrance tickets? Will all this be abolished now to avoid discrimination against the young?

The GMC should have changed their regulations in a different way to comply with the 2006 law - as interpreted by their lawyers. Instead of the exemption by age, which is now allegedly illegal, they could have introduced an exemption for those who do not engage in any gainful medical work, irrespective of age, and irrespective of non-medical income. But that would have demanded logical, intelligent and compassionate thinking by a body that is notorious for its archaic habits. Rumour has it, that they still use quill pens and are not particularly computer literate.

After I reached 65 and no longer had to pay my GMC fee, I did no gainful medical work of any kind. The only use that I made of my ongoing GMC registration was for private prescriptions for a short course of antibiotics for relatives of friends who visited from abroad. On several occasions I provided emergency help on airplanes or during meetings. Presumably all this will have to stop. When needed, my GP or a former colleague would write me a private prescription. To resume paying the annual GMC fee - currently £390 - just to allow me to perform these trivial actions is naturally out of the question.

I have my own personal bad experiences with the GMC.

When newspapers print a report that the GMC have 'struck off ' a delinquent doctor, their full personal particulars are always reported. But when these episodes are later reported in the GMC newsletter, they are left anonymous. No medical reader would be able to recognize such a culprit, if they were to seek work despite their ban and endanger more patients - it has happened. The GMC newsletter invites readers' comments - but my letters were totally ignored twice.
The GMC logo used to include the term 'protecting patients'. No more. They changed the motto to: 'Regulating doctors, ensuring good medical practice'. They should add 'ignoring doctors, endangering patients'.

When I arrived in Britain in 1962 my qualification, MD (Jerusalem), was registered by the GMC on my Temporary Registration. But as the medical school in Jerusalem was not interested in foreign accreditation and did not apply for it, my degree was not recognized by the GMC for full registration. I had to re-qualify. After making enquiries I chose to get the simplest 'recognized' qualification - from the Apothecaries' Hall in Dublin. The procedure was a farce - maybe I'll describe it in another blog - so I was not surprised to learn a few years later that the GMC had withdrawn its accreditation from the Apothecaries' Hall in Dublin. Nevertheless, my licence of LAH remained a 'kosher' degree. I ignored it when I provided my personal details: it was secondary to my original MD.

Imagine my surprise in 1996, when I was notified by the GMC that after 36 years they had decided to re-designate my qualifications. Henceforth I was no longer registered 'MD', only 'LAH'. I tried to reason and to protest, but the dinosaur refused to budge.
Later I passed the membership exam of the Royal college of physicians and was subsequently elected a fellow.

So as of this morning, sod the GMC registration:
I am still MD, FRCP.

23.Anatomy

2008-06-01T11:25:00.011+01:00

Last week Daphne, Jane and I Visited the Wellcome exhibition 'Medicine Man', with its model of a lesson in anatomy. It reminded me of my study of this subject in Jerusalem.

In the early 1950s, before I began my studies, students had to go abroad for their pre-clinical studies - and for anatomy in particular. Similar to the 18th - 19th centuries in Europe, corpses were scarce in Israel. There were no executed criminals, or abandoned vagabonds; and the orthodox Jewish institutions insisted on the Biblical commandment of burial before sunset, and of the complete body - to ensure its resurrection intact, when the Messiah comes.
If the law demanded a coroner's autopsy, a trained rabbinical expert had to be present, to ensure that every organ was replaced in the body, possibly excepting some tiny fragments for essential microscopy.

After Israel's independence in 1948 a new source of corpses became available: Arab terrorists who had been killed by the army in ambushes. In the 1950s they were still called infiltrators. Their existence was denied by the Arabs who had sent them; and their bodies were not reclaimed. So now anatomy could be studied at the medical school in Jerusalem. The city was divided, of course, without access to the university departments on mount Scopus. We were scattered in various buildings around western Jerusalem, and the anatomy department was in an old Arab house behind the municipal 'garden' - an oval area with flowers and trees, not far from the demarcation wall with the Old City beyond.

On the first day we all assembled in the large room, sitting silently around the dissecting tables. The bodies were covered with red rubber tarpaulins. There was a strong smell of formaldehyde. Professor Itzkovitch and Dr Gershon Gitlin introduced us to the subject - I remember it very well. First and foremost, they emphasized, these were human beings. They were dead, but they had to be treated with respect. No smoking was allowed in the room, and no eating. Second, we were reminded that there was some opposition to human dissection among the population. We were forbidden to talk about the activity there. No photographs, or visitors, were allowed.

It took me a while to realize, that there was another reason for the secrecy. All the bodies were middle aged men, with a swarthy appearance, and all were circumcised. Some had puncture wounds, or evidence of internal bleeding. Clearly, only more or less intact Arab bodies were chosen, and all bullets had been carefully removed. The delivery of bodies, and their embalming with formaldehyde, obviously took place at night. Soon, we had named out corpse Ahmed.

The course was intensive - we spent very many hours dissecting, for a whole term. Our textbook was Cunningham's manual and we followed its instructions to the letter. Each table of 5 or 6 student worked on one body. We began by laboriously teasing out the nerve strands under the skin of the scalp and face. Then we removed and dissected the brain. Then we turned to the chest, the abdomen and the limbs. We also received lectures about osteology, as well as embryology - it was Dr Gitlin's favorite research subject. The female reproductive organs were brought in on separate trays - presumably they were from patients who had undergone the relevant surgical removal, or perhaps 'unofficial' post-mortem dissections of non-orthodox women. We never asked.

With hindsight, anatomy was grossly overrated and over-taught in 1954. This imbalance was later recognized, and the topic of anatomy in the curriculum was gradually modified and shortened. Different specialists obviously required different aspects of anatomy - and psychiatrists needed none. So why burden their limited brain capacity?

22.Through the Retrospectoscope

2008-05-21T09:18:00.007+01:00

With hindsight, I think that several of my close relatives were medically misdiagnosed. In this post I have decided to include some medical terms: email me if you cannot find them in Google. If you are squeamish, then do not read this post.
But I suppose that this warning will just whet your appetite...
- - -
My [maternal] grandfather had his prostate operated at Hadasa in late 1955. He came back to our flat in Jerusalem to recover, but developed a very severe urgency to open his bowels. He kept running to the toilet, day and night. It exhausted him. Our GP kept prescribing anti-diarrheal medicine. But he did not do a rectal examination.
When he was readmitted to the hospital after several weeks of deterioration, they quickly diagnosed 'spurious diarrhea': he was actually severely constipated, aggravated by the GP's medication.
So they cleared his large bowel manually and with enemas. But when they tried to get him out of bed he collapsed - I suspect that he actually suffered a stroke. He died within a fortnight - in 1956. The GP's wrong initial diagnosis finally killed him.
- - -
In 1961 my aunt Valli, the mother of Amos, died suddenly. She had been perfectly well. One evening she developed severe chest pain and the cause of death was given as a heart attack. There was no autopsy.
Later I remember two facts. Those who had looked at her body [I didn't] commented on curious bruising under the skin at the base of her neck. And shortly before her death, she had had a chest Xray - I think it related to a claim for reparations from Germany. She was informed that there was 'something wrong' and that she should seek medical advice. But no details were given to her.
I think the chest Xray showed widening of the mediastinum due to a dilated thoracic aorta, and that it ruptured, to cause her rapid death. Aneurysm of the upper aorta is less common that in the abdominal aorta. Rupture is almost invariably fatal within minutes. Even now, almost 50 years later, it is still operable only if it is discovered before it ruptures, and even then it has quite a high mortality. The BMJ obituaries of doctors mention quite a number of these fatalities. The government is planning to measure the aortic diameter in elderly men by ultrasound - I had mine done last week, and it is normal: I shall have to choose a different cause of death...
- - -
From the second floor landing of their block of flats in Jerusalem, my father had arranged a string dangling down the central stair well to the level of the house entrance, with a clip at its lower end. First thing in the morning, the newspaper boy would clip the paper to the lower end, and my father would 'fish' the paper up, without having to descend and then climb the two flights of stairs.
In 1968 my parents were visited overnight by my [paternal] aunt Martha. In the morning, my father went out to fish for the newspaper. There was some noise, and my mother noticed that he had not returned. Going out and looking over the banister, she saw my father lying on the stone floor of the basement - three storeys down - a fall of some 30 feet.
It was assumed that when he retrieved the paper clipped to the string, he had overbalanced and fallen over the banister. My brother soon arrived, and he told the police investigators that, as a doctor, he could certify our father's accidental death. So there was no autopsy or inquest - clearly there had been no foul play.
But our father had been prone to depression from time to time. And one of his slippers was found one flight further up - above the flat. So I was sure that he had climbed further up the stairs, to make sure of the total height of his fall, and that he had jumped. I think that being the kind and considerate husband that he was, he had used the opportunity of his sister's visit, when his wife would not be on her own when he died. But apart from the stigma associated with suicide, the diagnosis does not matter.
- - -
In 1976 Daphne and I visited my mother in Israel. It was an enjoyable tour. On the way back from Ein Gev to Jerusalem, we stopped off at Ramat David to visit Judith's cousin Iona and her husband. Then we walked to the highway to catch the bus. The bus was approaching and I ran across the road to stop it. At the last moment, my mother decided to cross the road too. The bus hit her a glancing blow and knocked her down - her leg was fractured above the knee.
The bus driver stopped a passing car and arranged to drive us to Afula hospital - Daphne stayed with Iona. I kept checking her pulse - bleeding into the thigh could have tipped her into haemorrhagic shock. The Xray showed, that the break was just above the knee - routine plating would not be possible. So she was immobilized in skeletal traction with a pin through the upper tibia, to wait for the fracture to unite.

Somehow, by sheer luck, I was aware of the regulations of the Sick Fund that insured my mother: In cases of traffic accidents, the patient had to pay all expenses and then claim back from the driver through the court. But in cases of 'illness', the Sick Fund paid for everything. So in Casualty at Afula, we claimed that she had 'fallen in the road'. I impressed on my mother the crucial financial need to stick to this story. The bus driver had reported the accident, but when the police asked us, we said that the bus had not hit her: she had fallen. That saved her [and us] many hundreds of pounds, because the accident had been entirely her fault: there would have been no possible claim against the bus driver.

The following day, I suggested to my mother, that she should ask for a mid-thigh amputation. It would heal rapidly, and if Afula did not have IPOF = 'immediate post-operative fitting' of a prosthesis, I would take her to Roehampton. But my mother was appalled at the thought of becoming 'a cripple'. Still, I discussed it with the orthopaedic consultant. He preferred to order a customized fixing plate from England.
Weeks later the plate arrived. She almost died during the operation and needed resuscitation. In 1976 the risk, and the prevention, of deep vein thrombosis was not well recognized - my own concern had been for rapid rehabilitation. I had not thought of deep vein thrombosis at the time. She was not on any anti-thrombosis measures. Later I understood, that during the operation, an elastic bandage is wound upwards along the limb to leave a bloodless field for the incision. This had obviously squeezed the clots in her leg veins, like toothpaste, up into the larger veins - causing the clots to travel to her lungs.
But she survived this undiagnosed, and untreated, pulmonary embolus.

More weeks passed. They waited for the fracture fixed under the plate to unite and heal. Finally they decided to try to mobilize her. But the radiographers were on strike, so they got her up without taking an Xray. The leg buckled - it had not healed. They decided to transfer her to a rehabilitation unit near Tel Aviv. After some weeks there, I received a frantic letter from one of her friends, who had visited. She could hardly recognize the remaining shadow of her former self.
Before this letter reached me, she died, from a 'heart attack'. Clearly, showers of pulmonary emboli from the on-going leg vein thrombosis had finally overwhelmed her.

I flew from London for the funeral. As a Jerusalem resident, her death had to be registered there. The death certificate said 'heart attack', and when the registrar asked me about contributory causes, I said nothing. Had I raised my opinion of a pulmonary embolus related to the accident and to the operation, they would have ordered an autopsy and possibly even an inquest. The funeral, and my departure, would have been delayed for no good reason - she was dead. So the Israeli mortality statistics for 1977 are incorrect by 1 case.

For years, we had written weekly letters to my parents, and later to my mother, to report about events. Riding back from the funeral in Amos' car, the bizarre thought crossed my mind: 'I must tell my mother who was at the funeral'...

Unlike others, I do not believe in life after death. I can remember my relatives without the need to visit their graves. I shall not visit Kiriat Shaul, or Bat Yam.
But in the Holy Land, there has been an alleged risk of resurrection. So when the undertaker asked me what kind of tombstone I wished to order for my mother, I said 'the heaviest you've got'.

21.Birthday

2008-05-18T13:05:00.012+01:00

Last summer at the start of my U3A course on Herod I had mentioned that I usually read from the script of my text during my slide talks. Actually, I do try to formulate it, and to present it, as a 'live' spoken text, with added incidental humorous remarks - often based on contemporary news of our political liars and clowns.
On a previous occasion - at Madingley - my habit of reading from the script had been commented on: they clearly liked their tutors to be word-perfect. So I explained to my U3A group, 'That at the age of 83, I could not remember it all without referring to my notes...'

During the next interval, a couple of my students came to compliment me on my impressive youthful appearance 'at your age of 83'. So in the following talk I had to confess, that I was really only 74...

So this year, our daughters decided that we should have a proper celebration of my three quarters century. I had two requests: roast duck, and some home-made music. We agreed to assemble at Heather's flat, because there is a tested and approved Chinese take-away nearby, and also to save on the traveling distance for Daphne's crowd.
Ruth was in London for the weekend, and Andy came specially from Leamington. Only David was missing.

A few days beforehand I emailed them as follows:

Dear All,

I have just been contacted by the duck, whose turn it is to be roasted for Saturday.

She sounded extremely upset.
As far as I could understand (and I do not speak Mandarin well, my language is more Grapefruit) - she feels that our occasion is not worthy of her sacrifice; that it is an unlucky date; that she will miss her swimming, etc etc.

I suggest that we ignore the silly goose - but don't tell her that I said so.
She is attempting to avoid her destiny!

In the event, the food was delicious, although the bird did not say anything: remember the joke? Daphne had brought a yummy orange cake, and the Perrys' card illustrated an elderly man instructing his tattoo artist: 'I just want my address, my pin numbers, and oh yes - my name'. Heather had found a card showing Les Dawson reporting his doctor's advice for persistent wind: he gave him a kite.

Then it was time for music. They got out their recorders and played some old time duets and trios. It was very enjoyable, although some of it sounded quite shrill. I suspect that the sound actually drove Andy away, although he is actually quite busy at the moment.

Ruth drove us back home, prior to her class reunion - as reported in her own blog.
As we used to write in our school reports: We returned home tired but satisfied.

Hugh had phoned to wish me happy birthday. We do admire the devoted way he looks after Bernadette. And Oded & Adi phoned from Israel. [ I added this fact during editing, when I had remembered...]
A recorded telephone birthday message awaited us from Ehud Netzer in Jerusalem: he keeps a data record, and we do keep in touch - since our primary school days together in Jerusalem. There was also an email congratulation from David Roskin and his clan: another well organized relative - unlike me: I had accidentally deleted his email - unread and and unanswered! Luckily I found it again over a fortnight later and thanked them. I often quote David's explanation for the dinosaurs, millions of years old, when according to the Bible the world was created less than 6,000 years ago: the dinosaurs were created old.

Maybe I was created old too?

20-a.Nuqueib Part 1.

2008-04-27T23:25:00.025+01:00

On the occasion of the 60th anniversary of Israel's independence, I submitted the following article to SHEMA, the newsletter of Judith's synagogue.
It has just been published - slightly shortened:

46 years ago in Israel: The Nuqeib Action

Despite many months of protests through the United Nations, Israeli boats that were fishing legally on the Sea of Galilee were repeatedly shelled from a Syrian army position at Nuqeib, just north of kibbutz Ein Gev. Syrian Nuqeib lies on the eastern shore of the lake, exactly opposite Tiberias on the western shore - see the map.

In March 1962 the Israel government finally decided to attack and demolish the Syrian position. The task was given to the Golani infantry brigade, in which I served at the time as the brigade medical officer. So I was put in charge of the casualty clearing station for the action.

My recruitment for compulsory military service had been postponed until after I had graduated from medical school in Jerusalem. After a short course of military medicine, I was posted as medical officer to the Barak battalion of the Golani Brigade. My work consisted mainly of inspecting the camp's hygiene and sanitation and dealing with the soldiers' routine medical complaints. After a year, I was promoted to become the brigade's medical officer, with the temporary rank of captain. Now I was able to attend also the medical rounds at the nearby hospital once a week. But just as I was due to present a case at the next meeting, I was told to cancel my visit - without revealing the planned action at Nuqeib, of course.

On Friday 16th March 1962 all the combat units reached kibbutz Ein Gev under cover of darkness. I was met by my cousin Reuven, a veteran of the kibbutz, who was in charge of local security. He suggested that I set up my clearing station in one of their underground shelters. But I decided on a location with easy access from the battle area and for medical evacuation, in an open yard just inside the kibbutz gate. Now an enclosure for ostriches stands on that spot. We erected the tent for receiving casualties and by the light of the incandescent kerosene lantern we prepared our medical equipment, assembled some intravenous drip sets - and waited.

When the attack on Nuqeib started, the Syrian artillery on the Golan ridge above began an intensive shelling of the area. Some of the shells exploded in the kibbutz yard, quite near to our tent. Several times, shell fragments tore through the tent canvass but fortunately nobody was injured and n equipment was damaged.

Before long, casualties from the battlefield began to arrive. Ignoring the continuously exploding shells around us, we examined and treated the injured, completed their documentation and arranged their ambulance transport around the lake to Poriya hospital above Tiberias. Several soldiers were dead on arrival at my tent. I cannot now recall the numbers - but later I ascertained that all 30 casualties who had arrived alive at my clearing tent had also reached the hospital alive.

One of the dressers in my team had forgotten his steel helmet in camp, whereas I found it most cumbersome to perform my work while wearing my steel helmet. So I gave it to him. During the fighting, one of my battalion medical officers actually did sustain a penetrating head injury - despite wearing his steel helmet. Luckily he later made a full recovery.

After some hours, the stream of the casualties ceased and I assumed that the fighting was over. But the field telephone wires to the command post had been cut by the shells, despite being repaired twice. Dawn was breaking, but the Syrian shelling was still going on. Thanks to my previous visits to Ein Gev, I was the only person in my tent who knew where the shelter with the command post was located. So I retrieved my helmet and ran there to ask for instructions. I was told to dismantle my tent and withdraw to the force's assembly area in the Yavne'el Valley, across Lake Tiberias.

When we got there, I lay down in one of the ambulances and promptly fell asleep. As a result, I missed the visits by David Ben Gurion the prime minister and by the chief of staff Zvi Tzur. In the afternoon we returned to our camps and I was given home leave. The next morning two Army reporters arrived at our flat in Jerusalem. They said that I had been recommended for mention in dispatches by the chief of the general staff and they required photos. For the following few weeks, whenever a door was slammed loudly, it made me start and I ducked instinctively.

During the next independence day celebrations, I attended President Yitzhak Ben Zvi's customary reception to honour soldiers who had been mentioned in despatches. As usual, this was not followed by any sort of party.

(continued in next blog)

20-b.Nuqeib - Part 2

2008-04-26T21:37:00.017+01:00

NUQEIB (continued)

Some months later I was demobilized. I moved to London for postgraduate medical training. The specialty of rheumatology was not well developed in Israel at that time. Ten years later the Israel embassy unexpectedly phoned us one day. We were told that according to an Act passed in the Knesset in 1973, I was entitled to receive the Israel Medal of Courage. My wife Judith and I were invited to the embassy. An official made a speech, and handed me a certificate and the medal in its olive wood case - see photo.

This medal is awarded 'for an act of gallantry, at the risk of life, during fulfillment of combat duty'. So far, during the sixty years of Israel's existence, it has been received by only 220 soldiers. In my case, I had not experienced any fear during that night's shelling and I did not regard myself as being particularly brave. Had I taken part in this action as a combat officer, instead of as a doctor, my conduct might not have been regarded as all that outstanding. I have never worn the medal, nor have I told any of our friends about it.

To my knowledge, I only derived benefit from this honour on one occasion, when I applied for a medical post at Bethnal Green hospital. During the interview one of the consultants seemed particularly interested in my award. I was appointed to that post, and later I discovered that Dr Ian Gilliland was a staunch supporter of Israel. He had previously been a volunteer on Yigael Yadin's excavations at Masada.

- - -

Post Script

Since the ceremonial award of the medal all these years ago, I have not been contacted again by the Israel Embassy. They were obviously aware of my whereabouts; but I was never invited to the Independence Day celebrations, or notified of any other events there. I suspect that in their chauvinistic arrogance they regarded me as a 'Yored', an emigrant from Israel and therefore a renegade - practically a traitor.

Recently, when I decided to write my memoir for the synagogue magazine, I could not remember the number of casualties that had passed through our tent. I thought that perhaps Dr Eliyahu Gillon, who had been at the time the Commander of the Army Medical Corps and my professional superior, might be able to obtain access to the relevant archive. I managed to ascertain his address from a mutual acquaintance: he was retired but still doing research at Tel Hashomer hospital. I wrote him a friendly letter asking for his help. I never received a reply. Many Israelis are well known for their reluctance to write letters.

So I was prepared to skip the casualty figure, but I contacted the Public Relations Section of the Israel Embassy in London. I wished to ensure that my description was no longer classified; and incidentally, could they possibly obtain the casualty data that I was seeking. They replied promptly and assured me, that they did not 'censor' such texts as my memoir. As to the number of casualties - that would be very difficult or impossible to ascertain at this time.

Like Baldrick (of television notoriety), this gave me the idea for a cunning plan:
One of my relatives in Ein Gev is a qualified midwife, who had worked for many years at Poriya Hospital. Perhaps she would be able to obtain the information from the records of her hospital's casualty department? I knew that all the injured had been evacuated to Poriya during that one night, of 16 - 17 March 1962. Within a fortnight she e-mailed me the answer that she had received from the archive: there had been thirty casualties, including two shell-shocked. So now I could write my paper. And Frank Godson, the editor of the synagogue magazine, agreed to publish it.

19.Ethics of medical information

2008-04-24T16:30:00.014+01:00

During my medical career, the handling of medical information has undergone major changes. Hippocrates had said, that patients should not be given any information: the physician knew best, and the patient must trust him [invariably male, of course]. In the 1950s, patients were still regarded as idiots who should not know anything. In particular, they must not be told if they had cancer.

Our brilliant professor of paediatrics (Manchester trained) had vomited blood - it was due to a gastric carcinoma. He had surgery - and was told that it was 'an ulcer'. He was a very thin and cynical man - just the sort of person to develop a duodenal ulcer. That is what his all colleague told him - he should wait for recovery from the operation. While he slowly 'recovered', he developed jaundice - from hepatic secondaries, or perhaps cancer obstructing his bile duct. The surgeon knew that it was hopeless. So he was told that it was due to viral hepatitis, from one of the blood transfusions. Bad luck - hepatitis B was not considered as ominous as it is now. He slowly deteriorated and died - apparently unaware of the diagnosis. But perhaps he did know it was cancer, and just behaved to avoid the unpleasant and futile conversation on his hopeless situation.

But things were beginning to change. The chest surgeon, professor Melvitski, preached telling patients the truth.
Incidentally, he was the first to perform a closed mitral valvotomy in Jerusalem, by inserting his finger with a blade strapped to it, through a purse-string ligature prepared beforehand in the left atrium, and then pulling it shut. He told us candidly how anxious he was when performing this operation. His method saved the lives of many cardiac patients with mitral stenosis - those were the days of much rheumatic fever - progressing to heart disease. He later died in a crashed El Al plane sabotaged on its way back to Israel. Years earlier, he had saved the septic leg of my brother Michael after a road accident - that was before antibiotics.

In his lecture, Melvitski described to us a man, whose diagnosis of cancer was kept secret from him for some months, by telling him various lies to explain his deterioration. Finally he realized that he was actually dying, and he confronted his doctor. They had to admit the truth. "What a pity", the poor man said. "For years, I had been writing an important book to record my life's work. It needed the final chapter, and a short revision. But you promised me recovery, so I waited. Now it is too late." This did impress us.

But it was emotionally hard to tell patents, and it was contrary to tradition. I was looking after a good friend of my parents, a dental nurse, whose breast cancer had spread, despite having even her adrenals removed - those were desperate times. She fractured her femoral neck through a secondary deposit and it was pinned. On my next visit to her bed, she said, "Now starts my struggle with death." To my regret, instead of talking it over honestly with her, perhaps reassuring her that we could deal with her pain and distress, I just denied that the fracture was anything but an accident. The term 'palliative care' did not exist then.

I wished to tell patients the truth. But I had heard of cases, where this news destroyed the person - sometimes leading to suicide. In rheumatology, I found cancer two or 3 times per year, in a person sent for advice on 'aches and pains'. These patient often came with their spouse, who often guessed a sinister cause when the GP hadn't. When I suspected cancer, I created the opportunity to discuss the possibility of informing the patient, by sending the patient for 'another blood test', etc. and getting the nurse to fetch the spouse for a quick chat.

At the next appointment, I had the results of the investigations, and the couple had had a chance to discuss the possibilities. Invariably, they wanted the truth - but see below - about Mrs S.

The same secrecy, the keeping of information from the patient, applied also to medication. Names were not revealed on the containers - just 'the tablets' or 'the mixture', and how to take it. Often, it was just a placebo, a sham substance: vitamin B complex was the commonest standard.
But if a person consulted a different doctor, or attended the casualty department, all the information that they could give was the colour and shape of the pills. The 'monthly index of medical specialties' included at the end several pages of actual-size pictures classified by shape, colour and size. This usually facilitated identification.
By regulation, the pharmacist was not allowed to write the name of the medication on the container either, unless the prescription included the instruction 'proper name'. But for years, now, names are routinely put on the containers. A good U-turn.

As a final year student, I was observing a gynaecologist in his out-patient clinic. He reassured the anxious woman that after his full assessment and investigations he could reassure her, that there was no disease present. (When I myself said so, I always had nightmares, that the patient would go out and drop dead... Fortunately, this never happened!) Then, for reassurance, the gynecologist began to write a prescription that would 'make her feel better'. You've guessed it: "Vit. B. Complex i b.d. 14 days"
But this was in Jerusalem - where people are more outspoken. "Doctor, why do I need medication, if there is nothing wrong with me?" Dr Saltzberger (he later operated successfully on Judith - he is dead now) nodded, agreed, and tore up the prescription. I resolved never to forget this - and I haven't.

From this episode, and from my frustrating experiences in casualty, attempting to identify 'them little white pills', especially when dealing with drug overdoses, I quickly resolved always to write 'proper name' on my prescriptions - and never to use placebos. I would not accept a 'placebo treatment' from my plumber, or from my car mechanic. It is eminently dishonest. It is only sustained by paternalistic physicians who act like god, or as a quick short-cut, instead of a lengthy explanation and reassurance.

Physiotherapy is also used sometimes as a placebo, even when there is absolutely no scientific or experimental evidence for its effectiveness. Patients will often get better while having physiotherapy - not because of it! I have very occasionally sent a patient for physiotherapy for another purpose: to find out some other problems that were possibly aggravating their complaint. Patients were less inhibited by the therapist - and sometimes the information was very useful to me in helping the patient.

I had written a short article about my opinion, on the lack of scientific proof for the effectiveness of physiotherapy. It was published in 'Therapy', I think, and resulted in a flood of indignant letters to the editor. They all protested bitterly, that I had claimed that physiotherapy was 'useless' - whereas I had only complained about the absence of research. There was no point in arguing.

But in my hospital work, I had made a point of being on friendly terms with the therapists. I took my mid-clinic coffee break in the therapists' staff room, which gave us an excellent opportunity for informal discussions about patients and their problems - mine and others'. Incidentally, the array of unwashed mugs that were left strewn around by the all-female staff was astounding. After I found my own mug on several occasions used and dirty, I took it back with me to my office.

The history of Mrs S is different.

Over coffee, one of the physios in the staff room showed me a request from a local GP. Mrs S was in her late 70s. She had 'widespread arthritis' - could she have physiotherapy please. The physio felt that at this age, the request was unrealistic: could she [or I] refuse the GP's request?
A letter from Mrs S was attached. In the hope and expectation of receiving treatment, she asked to be offered afternoon appointments, because in the morning she was very immobile. That gave me the diagnosis: Mrs S probably had Polymyalgia, and not age-related Osteoarthritis. So I posted her a request for the blood test for an ESR [red cell sedimentation rate] - which is diagnostic - and an early appointment after the result was back.
The ESR was very high. QED. I saw Mrs S, explained my suspicion, and sent her home with a supply of Prednisolone tablets.
A week later she returned, quite convinced that I was god. Her 'arthritis' had melted away and she felt like a totally new woman. Experience with many local GPs had taught me to keep managing this condition myself. Most GPs are not very experienced in Rheumatology. And they attend the weekly lunchtime meetings for the food and to 'sign on'.
Over the following months, as we gradually and carefully tailed off the steroids, we became good friends. Finally she was 'cured', and off steroids. Each Christmas she sent me a card.

Then, a few years later, she wrote to ask me, whether I could resume her care. She felt very bad and she did not know why. Her medical notes gave the answer: she was under the care of one of my favourite surgical colleagues, who had found malignant melanoma - and it was spreading. This was outside my field, and I reassured Mrs S that she was in excellent hands, and that I could not just take over her care.
Her notes identified her next of kin. So I wrote to the daughter to explain, that perhaps at the age of over 80, Mrs S should actually know her diagnosis, because her uncertainty was her worst problem. The reply came by return: on no account was her mother to be told that she had cancer!

It was only some 15 years later that I first read in the BMJ about the primary responsibility of a doctor to their patient - and not to the relatives. Throughout my career, and at the time of Mrs S's illness, I mistakenly thought that the daughter's views were paramount. As she was now not under my care for the melanoma, it was not up to me anyway. But I could have tried to convince my surgical colleague to tell the truth to Mrs S.

As she deteriorated, she was admitted for terminal care. I went to see her on the surgical ward - her mind was still clear. As she saw me approaching, she slipped on her wig... and again asked me to take over her care: why was she not getting better? She could no longer eat or drink - but I was told by the nurse that they were about to set up an intravenous infusion.
I phoned her daughter: Her mother was dying. But nurses, especially Catholics, want to preserve and extend life. She must come and tell the staff explicitly, that they should not prolong her mother's suffering. Later I heard, that this had in fact been heeded by her.

In reply to my letter of condolence - Mrs S had become a good friend - the daughter wrote, how proud she was, that her mother had not known that she had cancer.
I reckon that it was the daughter, who had been unable to face the diagnosis.

18.Patrick Horne + 21.04.08

2008-04-22T19:50:00.009+01:00

Yesterday I was told that Pat had died from a massive heart attack. He was on vacation in Cuba. The following day, his ashes had been returned to Toronto.
In his last email, just before he left for Cuba, he had complained of being tired, and I thought that he was depressed. But his passing was shattering news to me. I have lost a very close friend - albeit a pen friend. We have corresponded at least twice a week, often more, for several years now. We met only once - when he visited Britain to research his work on Armand Ruffer.

It all started when Pat contacted me to praise the paper published in the JRSM [by Loebl and Nunn], on walking aids in Egypt and Palestine. It rapidly transpired that he had published an item in the BMJ's Minerva section, on Aspergillosis during life found in the lung of a mummy: the fungus histology is different in vivo. I told him that I remembered the item, and the amusing correspondence that followed. The BMJ always added a note requiring the subject's signed consent if pictures were to be shown. One of the correspondents wondered, how the mummy could give permission; and another suggested, that perhaps it could be obtained from the mummy's mummy.
For my talks on ancient medicine, he promptly sent me better slides of that case.

Pat was affiliated to his university, and so he had far better free access to literature on the web. Coupled with his uncanny knack of finding relevant items, his diligence and generosity, and his acquaintance with other experts, his supply of data was enormously helpful to me on numerous occasions. I shall continue to give him credit in my talks for two exciting small snippets: why the Biblical Ricinus plant [kikayon] that shaded Jonah, is usually illustrated wrongly as a gourd; and the post-Biblical exact Midrashic source for the medieval illustration of Noah, planting a vine accompanied by four animals, and getting drunk.

We were planning to submit for publication - possibly for 'Minerva' - another short item of a portrait showing unreported Xanthomata - I had spotted it in an art gallery and Pat had given me much help to define the diagnosis.

With great enthusiasm, he kept 'feeding' me with numerous other papers, which on first reading sometimes appeared irrelevant, but turned out to be valuable - or even farcical, such as the rubbish article from Beer Sheba about king David's diagnosis of osteoporosis. He told me that he enjoyed reading my papers and the texts of my talks. He was a rapid reader, and usually replied with some obscure picture that I had missed.

And then there were the jokes, including excellent Jewish and Catholic specimens. Pat had a very good sense of humour, and good sources. He probably died before he received my last string of rather good jokes. Ah well, there is no email in the Hereafter... and no Hereafter, either.

I shall miss him very much.

17.Seattle 10th to 16th April

2008-04-21T11:42:00.010+01:00

An impressive number of personalities visited Seattle last weekend.
First and foremost, myself and Judith. At our reception at the airport Sam and Josie greeted us with a short speech. 'Welcome', they said, 'your plane was early'.
After we exchanged hugs and kisses (which none of the other VIPs got), and evaded the reporters and photographers (which none of the other VIPs did), we were driven past the crowds to the Roskin's official residence.
The Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu were also in town.

We saw Miriam and Aaron several times. A bright, lively and well-behaved boy. He thanked us both immediately when he received his 'Thomas' engine. Possibly Miriam had prepared him? I'm not sure, and I forgot to ask... Miriam gave us a delicious meal and showed us her re-modeled garage that will become Aaron's play-room.

For the first time I heard that several people were reading my blog. So I'm not 'a voice calling in the wilderness' - which is a Christian distortion of the OT verse! Nobody has ever sent me an email comment...

We attended an excellent illustrated talk on Bernini by Rebecca Albiani at the Frye Art Museum. During questions she confirmed, that the identity of Bernini's model for St Theresa in the 'ecstasy' sculpture is not known. It is relevant to my talk on medical aspects of art.

Sam took me to 3 of professor Bridgman's classes on Tucidides at the University. Very interesting - he mentioned the six days war as an example of a just war in response to a real threat. I'll probably get Michael Walzer's book on just and unjust wars.

Sam also took me to a lecture in his Forestry course. Our visit had caused him to decide to miss a weekend field trip, which was apparently very successful. We had urged him to go - Josie would have coped.
The slide talk was on the aftermath of the Mount St Helen's eruption. Surprisingly, plants and animals survived and regenerated - the ash is, of course, very fertile. I learnt two irrelevant facts: that 'snags' are dead tree trunks that have remained erect - not just lesions in nylon stockings; and that decapitating a conifer permanently stops its upward growth.
But the lecture consisted of qualitative observations, with beautiful slides. We were given no quantitative data, and I'm not sure of the practical conclusions: although such events are rare, can one influence the recovery of a damaged area? And when wood is precious, can these 'snags' be utilized?

Another highlight was a visit to the exhibition 'Roman art from the Louvre' at the Seattle Art Museum. Not only was the material superb, but the explanations were excellent, both the audio set and the labels - far superior to the quality at the British Museum and the Wellcome. From the early emperors to citizens, and slaves, from architecture to military life, leisure and religion - I learnt a lot. But then it's just over 50 years since we visited the Louvre - it's on our list.
They display one Fayoum-style mummy portrait. Curiously, they say it is painted in tempera, whereas I understood that they were painted in encaustic wax - and the vivid colours would seem to support this. There are no email addresses in the catalogue, and I presume that they are right.

We visited Charles and Jonis Davis and some of their family in their newly and brilliantly remodeled house. A very enjoyable evening.

Sam took us to the Wednesday morning weekly get-together at the nearby cafe. A pleasant and interesting bunch of men - they do not exclude women but presumably somebody has to do the housework. Tom Luce was there - his wife was just about to have surgery to the base of her thumb.
My hearing aids amplify all - so the conversation was not entirely easy. I'd have to think carefully whether to go again.

In any case, the long flights and considerable jet-lag are a very considerable deterrent to going again all the way to Seattle. My earlier return home was a redeeming feature. The last 4 days have more or less restored me to UK time, so that I can start to prepare my next [and last] slide talk - that was the main reason for my return.
Missing the Seder [Passover ceremony] was an added bonus. For years, I have refused to recite the intolerant vindictive prayer, asking God to 'pour his wrath on those who do not recognize him'. I have gradual become more agnostic, and I skipped the ceremony completely last year. It was held in one of the rooms at the hotel in Petra, organized by the few Jewish participants in the ancient water conference. Judith enjoyed it.

The Seder commemorates a fiction, that is based on Biblical history which was only invented and added during the Jewish exile in Babylon. The Egyptians did not keep slaves - apart from prisoners of war. And at the time of the Exodus, Sinai and Canaan were under firm Egyptian control - with a string of military forts along the Israelites' alleged route. So the Israelites could not have 'escaped'. Not even a tiny fraction of 600,000 men, plus families, could have survived 40 years of wandering in the wilderness, etc, etc.
It follows, that the events at mount Sinai are also fictitious, and there is really no prohibition against adultery, or the other commandments. Politicians who lie, and steal, and send their citizens to die in [illegal] wars, and fornicate - they know all this already.

Sam's and Josie's hospitality was faultless. I had a most pleasant 6 days there, and my current freedom is another bonus, especially playing the radio at full volume.

But all good things have to come to an end - except sausages, which come to 2 ends.

16.Casting Pearls...

2008-04-09T20:09:00.007+01:00

In a fortnight my U3A course on Art of the Bible comes to its involuntary end. And I'm not giving a [different] course next year.
Judith hates her inability to talk to me, whenever I concentrate on the preparations - which takes many hours every fortnight. I can't interrupt my thread of thoughts easily, or sorting the slides, and she can't save things to remember later, however trivial they might be. That's Old Age...

Although the 'students' are attentive and appreciative, they prefer a totally passive role. Not one of them took notes, or read up my recommended passages. I suspect that not all of them even have a Bible with a modern translation at home.

I set them a task of making a list of recurring elements in the story of Joseph - with a book prize for the best entry. Not one of them bothered - they knew that in the end I would give them the answer: dreams, clothes, recognition, the goat, etc. That's my meaning of 'casting pearls'.

Attendance was erratic. These are elderly people. Visits to doctors and hospitals, booked holidays, other occasional clashing U3A activities, and having to attend unexpected funerals, all took their toll. One or two kept getting muddled about the dates - fortnightly seemed to confuse them.

I did not keep a register of attendance - they came when they could. But if you are a member, it's free: so probably 'it can't be worth much'...
It was a mistake to hold it at the synagogue. Compared to doing it at home, it added almost two hours for travel and setting up / dismantling each fortnight. And a concentrated course over a single weekend would have ensured much better continuity. Maybe in 2010...

A lot of the material this time was freshly prepared. My greatest satisfaction was the search for new images, and the discovery of new facts - Pat Horne was a rich source of weird and valuable knowledge. I suspect that I shall not wish to stop this work - whether or not it ever gets transmitted. And my commitment saved me from having to attend one funeral. A silver lining?

I was going to teach about Herod next. But with Ehud Netzer's work progressing at Herodion, and two recent books, waiting another year may be a good thing.
Meanwhile, Tax Return time is looming...

15.Our Technician Lyle

2008-03-16T19:48:00.006Z

Lyle is very knowledgeable and vastly experienced. He also has a lot of common sense. I'm interested in such mechanical and electrical tasks, and he is alway ready to explain and to teach. We get on very well.

Today he came to help with the [downstairs] shower thermostat. For some time, the water there does not get more than luke-warm, whereas it gets hot in the wash basin and the kitchen tap.

I had followed the instructions in the Bristan leaflet, but without obtaining any benefit. Lyle checked and confirmed, that adjusting the control was ineffective. The thermostatic control cartridge had become faulty - we shall have to buy a new one, which Lyle will fit.
P.S. I phoned Bristan the following day - carefully finding a non-087 land-line - and my request was handled very efficiently. To my astonishment, they promised to post it within a week, and all totally free!

I also discussed with Lyle the question of thermal wall insulation. The local authority are offering it free to people of our age. But the man from Coldbusters, the firm they recommend - from around Croydon, found a problem. Building the extension over the garage, with a sloping roof, has created an inaccessible space at the side of the house. The man thought that a hatch to reach this space from inside the garage might solve the difficulty.

Lyle said that he could construct such a hatch. He estimated his labour at £150. But he was not sure that the insulation workers would be able to operate there: he suspected that they liked comfort. Also, unlike the insulation of horizontal surfaces [and we do have loft insulation], insulating vertical cavity walls does not contribute much to preserving heat. Much of our external surfaces actually consists of double glazing. The cavity is designed to prevent damp from reaching the inner skin: some insulation materials cancel this protection.

I had the impression that the man from Coldbusters had not been very keen on this job. Possibly he honestly did not consider it worth while. Certainly the job was not straight forward. I do not know how much he would have charged the Council. It sounded like a government propaganda gimmick in their scare-mongering about global warming. We agreed to abandon the project.

Lyle's exciting news was about his van. Some months ago, he was parked in his driveway at home, loading and unloading items. He had unwisely left his keys in the ignition. As he next emerged from the house, the van had been driven away - stolen. His insurance did not cover, as he had not taken 'reasonable precautions'. Luckily his employers loaned him a smaller van.
We told everybody. Since that event, I remove the keys from the ignition while paying at the filling station, and even while posting letters, in a deserted street.

Lyle's greatest loss was his vast collection of bits and pieces, obsolete components that could help in repairs. And also all his tools, of course, not to mention the value of the van. He assumed that the van would be cannibalized for car spares.

But last week the police phoned. His van had been abandoned and taken to the police pound - the 'decent' crooks had even left the keys in the ignition. Lyle had to pay £120 and the van was released.

The clutch was worn through and the windscreen was cracked. And it was totally emptied inside. It had new number plates, of course. In case of further hidden damage, the police were reluctantly willing to reveal to Lyle the purpose, to which his van had been put: to drag cash points and rip them out of walls - hence the burnt-out clutch.

It gives quite a new meaning to Judy's occasional trips to get money 'from a hole in the wall'.

14.correct diagnosis

2008-03-13T15:02:00.006Z

It has taken me 20 years of retirement to observe an acute medical case from its onset to its conclusion.

Yesterday afternoon I had just finished my slide talk [on the story of Noah and its ramifications] when one of the students remained asleep. That is not unusual: after lunch, the lights are down... I often notice some of my mature audience nodding off. Harry does so - when he comes. And Mildred claims that shutting her eyes helps her to concentrate - except that thereby she misses the slides...

But her friend was not able to rouse my student properly. She brought her some water, but the lady could not stand up. As I was both 'the tutor', and 'a doctor', I was obviously responsible.

She was very drowsy, barely rousable. But no facial or limb weakness were apparent. Then her friend remarked that she was very sweaty, and the penny dropped immediately. 'Are you diabetic?' I shouted. - She said yes. 'Are you on Insulin?' - She said yes. So I ran to the kitchen to fetch sugar [in sachets] and a teaspoon.
She was able to 'eat' it and within a minutes or two she began to wake up.

'Have you had anything like this before?' - She said no. That was a bit worrying.
But by then she was able to tell us, that she had glucose tablets in her handbag - so we gave her two more.

She was still very weak, and it took Paula and Cliff on either side all their strength to help her descend the stairs to the foyer. We all agreed that she should be assessed in Hospital, and certainly could not drive herself home. The office called an ambulance - which came within some 10 or 15 minutes.

They were excellent, cheerful and professional. Nowadays they put on rubber gloves, and all the information that she gave them - date of birth, postcode, phone number etc. - by now she was fully coherent - was duly written on one of their gloves. Ball pens write particularly well on latex. Presumably it is copied later, or else they just file the gloves.

She has had diabetes - on Insulin - for many years. She lived alone, and had no relatives, but she did not want to be taken to the hospital. She knew that she would be kept waiting there for hours, and they would only repeat the same tests. And most important, she had two cats in the house... I hate cats - cunning beast who only pretend affection in the expectation of food and care: animal harlots.

By then her blood sugar was found to be normal, and after they also checked her blood pressure, they agreed to let her friend drive her home.

I phoned her this morning - she was OK. She described, that during the second half of my talk, the slides were getting blurred. And she told me that recently her blood sugar had frequently been low. But it had never happened mid-day: that is why she had replied to my question saying 'never before'.

I stressed the importance of getting her GP, and the diabetes nurse, to sort it out urgently.

Hopefully I'll see her at my next talk in a fortnight. Does this qualify for a U3A 'accident report'? Elsa offered to file one anyway. But not on a latex glove.

13.A successful day

2008-03-09T19:26:00.005Z

This morning we drove to Heather for my slide talk on medical aspects of art to her friends in the music group, etc.

Heather's new laminate wooden floor is superb. And Lyle accomplished several other improvements to her satisfaction.

I had arranged the slide sequence only the previous evening. I had discovered quite a number or unreported medical conditions portrayed in paintings, and Patrick Horne had kindly fed me with others that I had not been aware of. Even after pruning, there were still 108 slides left. Plus one Rubens painting that I had discovered only 48 hours earlier: no time to make a slide - I prepared an A-4 printout.

The maximum length of my talk had to be one hour. It was worrying. So I kept my text and its print-out to the bare essentials and planned to speed up the delivery. In the end it lasted just 45 minutes. Needless to mention, the odd humorous comment was still preserved. Judith, who is a very useful and strict critic, did praise it more explicitly than many previous talks. 'The best thing about it', she said, 'was its brevity'.
The 20 or so people there included Daphne, Jeff and also Jane, who behaved very well indeed. I am told that the people enjoyed it - one or two actually inquired about a further talk.

Heather had decided on hot soup [mushroom, or Thai chicken] with slices of Challah. It was an inspired decision and a great success. Mum made a cheesecake [but forgot to put in the sultanas that I love..] and Helen made a superb ginger cake.

After everybody left, I relaxed on the settee and I woke up two hours later. In the style of our primary school essays, 'we returned home tired but satisfied'.

Tomorrow we are visiting Hugh and Bernadette in Manchester.

12.Joseph

2008-03-08T09:41:00.005Z

The Biblical story of Joseph is a superbly crafted literary masterpiece. And its embellished copy in the Koran is also quite good - as is Jami's work Yussuf and Zuleika. In Genesis, the randy woman is never given a name: she is 'the wife of Potiphar'. Jami adds a happy ending. Read it, Ruth, but skip the philosophical ruminations.

The very numerous Illustrations of the story concentrate especially on one episode, of course. It gave men the opportunity to display in their home a pornographic image that was Biblical and 'sacred', and could not be condemned.
Needless to say I have collected a good many images of the seduction scene - of which the above is a fairly modest examples.

Joseph is invariably shown youthful, without a trace of a beard. I agree with those who say, that he was sexually [as well as emotionally] immature. Perhaps it was genuine delayed puberty. Later he matured to the point, that his brothers failed to recognize him. And he did father children.

Joseph gives the wife of Potiphar a lengthy explanation, why he will not, nay he can not, lie with her. [Can you hear Lurkio in 'Up Pompeii?']
That is why in Jewish tradition he is called 'Joseph the righteous'. Never mind his cunning maneuvres, to convert the entire wealth of Egypt, including all future national production, to the ownership of Pharaoh. It leaves the tax rises of the Labour government well in the shade!

Had I been there, I would have answered the wife of Potiphar in 3 words only:

"All right, then".

11-b.Visual Aids cont.

2008-03-07T20:28:00.005Z

Ahh, Ruth did say that I have to download the image first...

On the previous blog, I did actually delete the text that I had started, and then tried to download the image.

But it still didn't work. Sometimes you cannot out-smart the machine... So I have to plan ahead.

Judah [the son of Jacob] lost his son, before they had children, and according to custom the widow Tamar should have been married to the remaining son. But Judah delayed, in case Tamar caused the death of her next husband.

Judah then lost his wife. After a while his sexual appetite returned. He travelled to shear his sheep - possibly a euphemism. His widowed daughter-in-law heard of it, disguised herself and sat at the roadside. Judah duly approached her, thinking she was a prostitute.
On finding the painting, the caption became quite obvious to me:
"American Express? -That will do nicely".

This would have changed the continuation of the Biblical narrative. To prove that her father-in-law was the cause of her pregnancy, she would have had to produce the VISA receipt, instead of Judah's staff and seal.

Next blog - Joseph.

11-a.Visual Aids

2008-03-07T18:29:00.003Z

Ruth had told me how to include pictures in my blog. I managed 'the anatomy lesson' [see previous blog] and I also added a cut-down picture for my profile. It is an excellent photo - a sliver of Judith remains.
But when I tried to add images from another folder in 'my pictures', it did not work. The window message asked me to notify the blog-masters, but I ignore such requests. Next time Ruth comes she will help me: the intended funny comments related to the image that I found of Judah and Tamar will keep.
On the web, sites are getting more generous with images of paintings. Which means that I can make many more slides related to my talks.

10.Addendum to 'Private'

2008-03-04T13:00:00.008Z

This is the image of the anatomy lesson whose source was so difficult to ascertain. The painting belongs to Glasgow university but can be found on the web.

Today's begging letter was from 'Womankind Worldwide'. It was addressed to me personally. Naturally I assumed that they wanted to enrol me as a sperm donor. I was going to ask them: in vivo, or in vitro?
However, when I opened the envelope, I found that although they were asking for a standing order, they had something quite different in mind... Ah well.

I wonder whether I should invite readers to comment on my blogs. My email is accessible.
But from the small sample of comments to Ruth's blogs that I have read recently, I'm not hopeful. A bit like the comments about 'Israel pics' which they publish on Arutz Sheva: Inane, boring, or plain ignorant. My favourite examples are the 'poems' from a regular orthodox 'bard' from the US, identified as 'MED,USA'. He confidently identified mandrake flowers as 'African violets'. And on a recent photo of a hilltop crusader type building complex, he asked whether it was Herodion. Google images could have spared his ignorance.

He knows about meteorology and cloud formation. So I pretended to comment on a quite mediocre photo of a stream cascading over rocks - in his name and in his orthodox style :
'Wonderful. The cumulonimbus has shed its load and the L--d has made it flow downstream'.
So he wrote: 'comment #1 is not mine. It sure looks wonderful'

In my student days I worked night shifts performing meteorological observation and phoning them through to the weather centre. I still remember the names of all 27 cloud types. But that's another story.

09.personal

2008-03-03T13:10:00.007Z

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.

08.Nuqeib

2008-02-12T13:09:00.003Z

I have just written a memoir of my involvement in the IDF action at Nuqeib 46 years ago - a sort of in-vivo obituary. It has been accepted by Judy's synagogue magazine for their issue just before Indepedence Day. So in keeping best journalistic tradition, I'll keep it embargoed until then. On Google, there are several entries about Nuqeib, written by rabid Moslem fanatics in a very long list of 'Jewish atrocities' since 'Zionists' invaded their 'God-given' property, Falastin.
I had submitted my article for advice to the Israel Embassy press office. They assured me that they do not censor such items, provided they do not contain classified information. Well, after 46 years and all the military actions since, we agreed that it was not a classified secret any longer.
But I had never known the actual number of our casualties. Could the press office help? - I was told that this would be very complicated, and might not be revealed.
When I planned my article recently, I had tried another avenue. I wrote to Dr Eliahu Gillon who, as IDF Chief Medical Officer at the time, had been my immediate superior. We had a mutual friend and I knew that Dr Gillon was alive and well. Alas, he never replied. Possibly, the records of the medical corps were not easily accessible to him. And people do not like to give negative replies. He owed me no favours and, in Israel, writing letters is often regarded as a chore. They like phoning...
Being fond of devious actions, I finally devised a cunning plan. I phoned a relative in Israel. She is a nurse and was still on the staff at the hospital, to which all the casualties from the Nuqeib action had been admitted on that single night.
She is a very friendly and experienced person, and she was obviously able to get the archive staff of the hospital to do some quite unusual voluntary work for her. They found the admission records for that date - and I was given the missing facts for my article.
Watch this space!

07.Fading Memories of dead colleagues

2008-02-06T17:13:00.001Z

After I had been shortlisted for the consultant post at Barnet General Hospital, my first visit had two purposes: to get an idea of the travelling distance from Woodford, and to meet some future colleagues. It would have been unwise not to show courteous interest. It also showed them, that this 'ex-Israeli' spoke fluent English, wore a suit, and behaved acceptably. Much later I heard, that at Barnet the news of my appointment was circulated as 'The Israeli got it'. -And I do not even have an accent!

The senior physician Dr Oliver Garrod showed me round. His one remark that I remember was, that at Barnet all patients washed before they attended. Presumably he assumed that at Westminster hospital, where I was working, the slum dwellers and Salvation Army beggars were all filthy. He introduced me to Ken Stone, the orthopaedic surgeon. But not to his colleague Dr Royston, the other consultant physician. I soon found out that they loathed each other. Soon after I started work, I introduced myself to Dr Royston. He was clearly pleased that I had shown the courtesy to meet him.

On the evening before the meeting of the appointment committee, a sherry party was held at the hospital. All interested consultant have copies of the CVs of all four shortlisted candidates and can ask questions informally. Then the candidates leave, and the consultants decide on the one that their representative will support at the appointment committee. I remember being asked how importantly I regarded a physiotherapy pool. There wasn't one at any of the hospitals where I had trained, and I had heard that at the new Royal free the pool leaked into the floor below. I replied that upgrading the antiquated physiotherapy department was of greater priority. But it was never done during my tenure...

Much later I heard a vague roumour, that shortly before, a large donation had been received specifically to create a physiotherapy pool. I could never obtain details but some of my colleagues obviously used that money for other purposes.

My predecessor Dr Talbot had been a consultant in physical medicine - dealing non-surgically with skeletal problems. He knew little about rheumatoid arthritis or its medication - these patients were referred to, and managed by, the general physicians. Dr Talbot just ordered physiotherapy and gave local injections. When I was shown round, there was a bottle of smelling salts, used for those who fainted during the large volume injections that he gave. I changed all that.

At Finchley memorial hospital, Dr Talbot's one-line clinical notes were written as instructions on the physiotherapy card. This entry was followed by a series of date stamps - indicating the patient's attendance for treatment. Then followed Dr Talbot's next entry: a variable number of 'v's followed by 'm.' and 'i.'. It was explained to me that this meant a variable number of 'very', up to 'very very very very', followed by 'much improved'.

I asked to write my clinical notes in the patients' medical record. For diagnosis, and for safety, I needed to see other clinical documentation. As expected, the medical records officer claimed that this could not be done. In that case, I said, I shall not see any patients from next week. The 'Israeli' got his way.

At Barnet I saw my patients in one of the cubicles of the physiotherapy department. I was told that the purpose-built outpatient department was fully committed for prior colleagues. Only years later, did I get 'squatters rights' when someone left.

The washbasin, used also by all the physiotherapists, was diagonally across the corridor - and it was busy. So I asked Bill Brewer, the hospital secretary, for a new washbasin in my clinic cubicle. He replied within days, that the plumbing and drainage only existed along the opposite wall.

So I sent Bill Brewer a draft letter, that I intended sending to all patients on my waiting list, for his advice. I explained that the distance to the washbasin and the occasional extra waiting there probably reduced by one or two the number of patients that I could see per session. Within a fortnight, I had my own washbasin built and connected.

The physiotherapy department had a single telephone line. It was in the office, further away than the washbasin was. But Bill Brewer explained that unfortunately all the lines of the hospital exchange were fully committed. So once again I showed Bill a draft letter to the Regional Hospital Board, asking for their help. To my delight, a telephone line for my clinic was found almost immediately.

Computers were becoming fashionable. Judith and I even attended evening classes to learn about them. At Barnet, sheets of self-adhesive identity labels were now prepared for attending patients. No longer did I have to write these details on request forms for up to 5 different investigations. It was bliss.

I checked and initialled all results of investigations. Occasionally the patient had to be recalled sooner unexpectedly to make sure, or for safety reasons. And although the identity labels had addresses and dates of birth, they had no phone numbers. So I visited the computer office - far posher than my cubicle. But they explained that there was no additional 'field' available for a phone number to be added. From my evening classes I knew that this was a lie.

The solution was simple. After each outpatients session, when I dictated letters, I put aside all medical folders where the result of an investigation was awaited. And when the result came, my secretary would put it in the notes and, if necessary, contact the patient - the phone number was in the folder, though not on the label. Medical records had extra work on patients, who also attended other departments, while I was 'hanging on' to the notes. Too bad.

A few months before I retired, out-patient appointments were due to be computerized. A man came to ask for my preferences. There were two problems. First, There was no back-up for the computer that was used. Once a month, the data were sent to 'the Region', he reassured me. I had visions of clerical staff scurrying round at the start of clinics when the computer was 'down'. And sure enough, I observed such episodes.

And second, there could only be clinics of either 'new patients', or 'follow-ups', and no flexibility of time length for individual patients. Whereas I always mixed 'new patients' and 'follow-ups', and I did read the GP letters to decide on expected duration of each interview as well as the urgency. There were two indications for early appointments: one was a GP description that suggested an early assessment. The other was a letter from one of 2 or 3 local GPs, whose clinical knowledge was clearly poor: they were unable to recognize potentially serious conditions. Their identity was well known also among my colleagues.

Once again, the solution to the computer scheduling of my clinic lists was simple. I refused the new programme, but took the appointment book into my clinics, found the appropriate slot for the next visit and filled it in both in the book and on the patient's appointment card. It took just a few seconds. My successor complained to me, that he had not been able to maintain my system. And occasionally chaos did indeed ensue, when the computer was 'down'. Receptionists and nurses had to wait until patients arrived for their appointment, before they could search for their notes.

06.Happy Days

2008-02-02T12:04:00.001Z

Ruth received the exam results for the term at Nottingham University. She is in first place overall!!

It helps when one studies seriosly and if it is an interesting subject: also, she had worked very hard.

She thought that she was 'lucky with her genes' - after all she is studying a biology-type topic.

So I reminded her, that we had an extremely clever milkman at that time.

Heather has been struggling to get used to her new up-graded flute. I sat in the shop with her (near Waterloo) for over an hour, while she tried half a dozen instruments, with the most expert and kind help of the vendor, until she made her choice.

She still had doubts, but 3 days ago she told us that she thought that she had finally 'turned the corner' and last Thursday she took the new instrument to her music group. They were quite impressed, how much better it sounded. She also managed some notes, which had been impossible on the old flute.

So now she will take the previous flute to that shop - for them to sell.

I had photographed 4 slide films - that's over 150 pictures. To my delight, virtually all were at the correct exposure, and now I'm mounting and labelling them. It's exacting work (see a previous blog).

I also found a German painter who portrayed a clear picture of thyrotoxic goiter. The model was his fiancee. So her rapid heartbeat was not entirely due to being in love... My slide talk on medical aspects of art is gaining cases.
I've got my new glasses for computer uses. Half the weight of the double-glazed pair.

For the approacing 60th anniversary of Israel, I offered Judith's synagogue magazine a reminiscence of my participation in the Nuqeib action. I'm keepin it under 'self-imposed embargo' until it appears in early May. By then I might know how to copy and paste into the blog.

05.making slides

2008-01-29T12:51:00.002Z

At my slide talks, I am praised for my slides. A lot of work and time is spent to get it right. And darkness during projection is essential.
If the source is from the web, the image is saved in 'my pictures'.
Opening 'fine pix', I can trim unwanted edges and sharpen the image.
Opening 'Serif portrait plus' [from Ruth], I can change contrast & brightness, rotate - if the image is not quite straight, and adjust canvas size to create white margins, to give the 3:2 proportion for the print and its slide.
It the image is less than 40 or 50 KB, it will be rejected at Boots or Tesco. I can print it on our HP printer - often it is still of adequate quality.
From books I also occasionally have to print on the HP printer first: Either to enlarge small images for easier photography, or to avoid difficult access of the camera in a book, or to avoid seams across pictures on 2 pages. I print twice and do plastic surgery. The seam must be lengthwise - to avoid light penetration.
I find 'normal' print speed adequate, and I can still change contrast and colour intensity.
I also retouch many pictures, both photo prints and HP prints, to emphasize lines, to add colour or correct blank areas etc.
Slide film is becoming less common - but I do not plan to invest in PowerPoint equipment and to convert my 3,000 plus slides.
For photography, I wait for a time with steady ambient light - cloudy or sunny. The SLR camera has 3 extra 'plus' lenses attachable, to attain images from 3 cm to 80 cm. The camera is fixed to an old overhead projector column movable vertically and it is also tiltable, all on a wheeled frame that can be moved nearer or further from the glass pane for adjusting the lighting. Exposure also has to reckon with varying darknesses of parts of the image.
Rarely, I can tilt the image relative to the horizontal, to compensate for parallax in the image.
When all is worked out then, for maximum sharpness, the aperture is set to minimum and the shutter time is increased to compensate. For exposures of more than 1 second, this is timed on my watch.
There was a time when I bordered the image for photography with black plastic strips to fill the whole slide area. But this was fiddly, and often needed further blackening of the area on the film. So now I stick pieces of 'post-it' over void areas, and blacken them with an indelible felt pen just before mounting.
To avoid mis-cutting the film between slides by the laboratory, I order films to be returned uncut. I use Gepe plastic mounts and write on each frame the identity of the image & artist, including their dates, painting method, size, current location and source. A black dot in the lower left corner ensures correct orientation in the carousel: for each slide there are 7 wrong possibilities of placement - sideways, upside down and back to front...
The slides are stored by topics in hanging files of 24. But some slides are used in more than one talk, so I hope to create a database at some free time.

04.Update

2008-01-25T22:01:00.003Z

Mainly trivialities.
Recently I got new reading glasses but the lenses were clearly wrong. Furthermore, I can read easily without glasses. To watch the computer screen I use the 'double-glazed glasses with the outer lenses hinged up'.
So we took the dud pair to Costco's optical department, where mum was taking delivery of a new pair of glasses. She had had to wait an extra week, because the lens was not right. I asked them to measure the 'inner' lenses of my double glazed pair - refraction and cylinders, and to copy this as new lenses into the frame of the above new 'dud' reading glasses.
Normally they need to re-test my vision, but
a. my last test was only 9 months ago, and therefore could not be repeated on the NHS in less than a year, and
b. Mum had a new pair on order and thus we were valued customers.
So they agreed to order copies of my lenses without re-testing - and I signed to confirm.
The optician strongly recommended high-refraction plastic, which gives thinner and lighter lenses - at treble the price. But I declined. The present double glazed pair had normal strength plastic lenses, and the pair I was ordering would be single glazed and therefore half the weight. So they agreed and I signed once more to confirm.
At this point they re-measured the distance between my pupils. They used a clever electronic gadget, whereas my previous optician had always just used a ruler in front of the eyes.
I was impressed by their professional standard and pleasant manners, although another member of their staff was a fairly aggressive woman who was obsessed with putting things away even when they were still in use and was totally devoid of any sense of humour. In a fortnight I'll see the resulting new glasses. Unlike my former optician, Costco ask for full payment in advance.

The latest BMJ had a report from a [lady] geriatrician who had done an MA in History of Medicine. The page included an illustration of a painting of an anatomy lesson, probably 16. or 17.c. Normally the BMJ gives particulars of such pictures - but not on this one.
So I e-mailed the author to ask. I remarked that I would have loved to study this topic formally, but it was too late at my age. She replied promptly to say, that she would enquire about the painting - it had been inserted by the journal. And she asked, "whether I was Daphne's father".
I confirmed and said, how nice it was to have a famous daughter. [actually, all my daughters are famous]. Mum thinks she remembers Claire - I'll ask Daphne.

A similar episode in reverse happened a few weeks ago. Pat Horne from Toronto emails an avalanche of fascinating and relevant papers. This one was about arthritis in Durer's family, by a George Weisz from Australia. It was published in an art journal, so I was not sure whether George Weisz was medical. I emailed to ask for further medical details of the Durers: familial arthritis can be associated with Psoriasis etc. I added, that my mother's maiden surname was Weiss - of which Weisz is the Hungarian form. Are we possibly related?
George Weisz answered promptly and excitedly. He too was born in Europe. He too had studied medicine in Israel, served in the Israel army, and then emigrated. In his case to Australia - a step that he regrets, despite having spent his entire professional career there - in orthopaedics! His heart is in Israel. But no, we are not directly related.
Our calls to Australia are free, and we had a pleasant chat in Hebrew, including his wife.

Provided the ambient light is steady, I still have many more pictures to photograph. Cumulus clouds flitting across the sun are the worst. I'm waiting for tomorrow.

03.religious fanatics

2008-01-20T08:30:00.003Z

We are told that Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah declared yesterday, that his armed group "has body parts of Israeli soldiers killed in Lebanon during the 2006 conflict."

He said they had the "heads, the hands, the feet and even a nearly intact cadaver".

So the Hezbollahs and their leader are inhuman savages. I can just imagine the reverse situation, with Moslems' body parts being held by Israel for barter. There would be world wide riots - well organized and conveniently used by the rabble to loot as much property as possible.

The Moslems claim to be a peace loving religion. Indeed, many Moslems are not terrorists, or suicide bombers. But every single suicide bomber is a Moslem - and so were all the perpetrators of the 9/11 airplane outrage. They are indoctrinated and groomed by their religious leaders.

The Moslem religion is some 600 years younger than Christianity and they are now in their analogous medieval period. Inquisitions, burning people alive, stoning women who had been raped - and much more. They call their Crusades "jihad". The main target is still the Holy Land. It is an aggressive religion. Factions such as Shiites and Sunnies kill each other - I am not sure why.

Their aim is to create a totally Moslem world - and they will probably succeed. But give them another few hundred years, and they may become civilized as the Christians did. We die in hope...

02.Incompetence

2008-01-19T17:10:00.003Z

Gordon Brown said, that Peter Hain forgot to declare his receipt of £100,000 because of incompetence. Hain has apologized to his colleagues - bravo!
And a civil servant left a laptop to be stolen from his car with details of 600,000 people. No doubt he too will apologize.

But once a person's responsibility for such a blunder has been established, they ought to be punished financially with a hefty fine. Docking six months' salary of such an individual will certainly concentrate everybody else's mind very efficiently.

In a philatelic collection of post office document from the British mandate in Palestine there is the written apology of a clerk, who miscalculated the postage on an item. It was a genuine mistake of a few mils. But it was noticed and he was reprimanded. He was fined and wrote this apology, and promised never to do it again.

The British High Commissioner for Palestine said, that the only way to hit the 'Jewish terrorists' was through their pockets. It does not work against fanatics - but it would certainly work against incompetence!