60. Death

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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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55. Our shared punch lines

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?'

50. Death and burial

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.

48.Our golden Lodgers

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.

22.Through the Retrospectoscope

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

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?

17.Seattle 10th to 16th April

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.

06.Happy Days

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.