Cogitated & Digested

Jonathan Ross was always a foul-mouthed unfunny in my eyes.

Mark Kemode should have got the Film... job on Barry Norman's retirement.

The current situation has been completely overhyped and not worthy of the fuss being made.

Jonty will come back in three months as if nothing has ever happened.

The recession is Robert Peston's ploy for world domination. Evan Davis or Jeff Randall would never have let this happen.

I love elections and I'm glad I'm on nights next week.

The US election is actually still interesting despite going on for 18 months. Much better than 2004's bore draw.

I'm worryingly attracted to Sarah Palin.

I want to be able to go on a stage and point & wave at people so I look like I'm popular.

I was tempted to go as Ariel Sharon to my "Undead" party next week but thought my chums wouldn't get and not appreciate my black humour.

So I'm going as Pinocchio instead.

I first saw the Brand New Heavies as an audience member at Pebble Mill, which was a lunchtime chatshow. I was wandering around BBC Pebble Mill in Birmingham and was asked if I wanted to watch the show. I think it was Judi Spiers rather than the Titchmarsh who presented.

I did remember more clearly the Brand New Heavies who were promoting Midnight At The Oasis, their current single. It was my first real experience of a live band, I was quite impressed. I carried on following their music but it's only now fourteen years later that I've been able to go to a full live show.

Support was a.human. Started a wee bit strangely but actually turned into a quite a rip-roaring set. A good warm-up. They were certainly a lot of fun.

The Heavies started with a couple of their instrumental tracks and jams (as they themselves started out) before N'Dea Davenport came on for the vocal tracks. You can tell they've been doing this for almost 25 years because they are a fantastically tight live band. 90 minutes of relentless piano, brass, bass and soulful vocals (Jan Kincaid has a marvellous voice I think). I bopped and sang a left exhilarated

Setlist (in no particular order)
BNH
Ride In The Sky
Dream On Dreamer
Midnight At The Oasis
Back To Love
Spend Some Time
Daybreak
Let's Do It Again
All Fired Up
Dream Come True
Never Stop
Don't Let It Go To Your Head
Jump 'N' Move
You Are The Universe
Sometimes

Well, the deal has been sealed I think. Spent a lovely weekend with BlueLight showing him the delights of my hometown. I'm a bit of a simple soul and need things to be quite clear but the signs are good. i.e we're making plans and suggesting that we do things together.

So that's quite nice. It is strange though. I'm trying to stop my mind racing ahead or thinking of whys and wherefores. And my eyes did get a bit prickly when thinking to the Sand situation. Which remains unresolved, technically.

But the decision has been made. It's time to move on.

Lucky I've got quite a nice destination

I do like my geography. I don't care who knows and I can take the colouring-in jibes! I took it all the way to 'A' Level and would have seriously considered doing a degree in it had I not taken my chosen path. In fact, my career choice at 16 was medicine or meteorology. Had my work-experience fortnight gone differently I could be sat at a super-computer or, if they deemed me audio or telegenic enough on Countryfile or even on the internet.

I'm sure you good students all remember push and pull factors. They are the reasons why people migrate. So you have on the one side, for example, poor climate, no food and on the other jobs, schools and cinemas. Well, I guess from my current situation a lot of it has been push with no pull. You don't migrate unless you have something to hope for.

I was hoping to be a big strong smug boy and happily strike out on my own. Something unexpected has happened over the last 2½ months. He shall be christened BlueLight. Because a) blue eyes, b)he has broken my (stupid) "no NHS" rule for my significant others, c)he's an antique light collector. I haven't mentioned him before because, frankly, with my track record things are best left till they are firmly in concrete. And to be honest, I've not really known what I have wanted.

BlueLight has been quite helpful in crystallising thoughts and deciding what it is that I want. He's been part of the greater vacillation I've had over the last four weeks.

It's been a pleasure to have something simple, not worry about what is behind the words, intentions. Just enjoy each other's company and take things as they come. This weekend coming will, hopefully, seal-the-deal.

I've realised I've needed a pull-factor to kickstart me out of this.

And yes, I realise there are SO many jokes to be had out of this post Bring it on!

I've been feeling quite active this week. Surprising because I've done a lot of hours over the last 4 weeks. And even with a good thing, you tend to flag after a while.

I think I finally feel quite settled in the job. We move departments every four months and within this four months we move every six weeks to a new ward. New faces, new routines. I move again in a week's time.

I think for many people when you go to the doctor you think they will be able to sort any problem out. To a certain extent that is true, we all have the same basic training and should be able to pick up on the severe of almost any problem. People are aware of specialists too - that if you have a certain problem you need to see them.

In many hospitals that isn't too difficult to arrange for most things. My particular hospital is a specialist cancer hospital. And that is all we deal with - cancer. As cancer can affect any part of the body you have to "be up" on the whole body, however you cannot be an expert in everything.

A couple of my patients have needed specialist input this week and you have to learn how to sell problems to them. I quite like talking to other specialists and discussing patients - it crystallises your thoughts about the problems at hand.

Not having a resident urologist, anaesthaetist, gastroenterologist etc does cause problems though. I'm not a pushy or pestering type of person but I've had to learn to be more assertive to get some people to listen about what is happening with some patients and get there input.

There have been times this week where I wish I could be an anaesthaetic surgeon with a sideline in physiotherapy and sort some of my patient's problems out. Then I wish I was a social worker and housing officer. And a radiologist to get that scan done.

But you can't do everything. And that is where the gift of the gab, persistence and luck comes in. That is what I have being practising this week.

Thank God I have deep, deep levels of patience.

I'm lucky with my job. I get to see a wide range of people and conditions. It is a privilege, you get a snapshot into people's lives that sometimes even their nearest and dearest aren't told or know of.

You see the material poverty for sure. My mind is imprinted with the health outcomes and standardised mortality ratios between areas such as St Helens, Sandwell and the East End of Glasgow with Kensington & Chelsea and the leafier parts of Surrey.

And - for all the understandable bemoaning of postcode lottery I know of the fear people had pre-NHS of their loved one falling ill and wondering if they could afford to see a doctor. And how that is still the case for billions of people across the world where measles still kills 800,000 children a year. Poverty is most hurtful when it is relative.

However, the things that I struggle with most is the poverty of human interaction for want of a better term. There are the extreme cases such as Den. Den was a 62 year old man who was transferred to our hospital for further assessment from the A&E department at our sister hospital 50 miles away. In the health service now 62 is young - but this chap looked 25 years older.

There are certain smells that once experienced are never forgotten, diagnoses that you can make without seeing the patient. Den had an ischaemic limb, and that smell was the death of the greater part of his foot. He was pretty cold up to his hip too. Intermingling with this was the stench of stale linen and of skin folds (not that he had that many). He also had nails that curled under themselves 3 or four times.

The paramedics brought a paper with John Major's "Put Up or Shut Up" quote on the front in the garden of Ten Downing street. The paper of the day commented on the third year anniversary of the Stop The War march.

That's an extreme case of the isolation in which a lot of people live. The frequent attenders at GP surgeries go "for something to do" sometimes. The day care centre may be the only meaningful exchange in a week for some people.

Away from the extremes of age there is the isolation from neighbours and less cohesion and an increase in fear.

So whilst abject material poverty is rare in the United Kingdom - I feel it has merely been replaced by poverty that is even more difficult to alleviate. I'm not sure how we can claw that natural tip-of-the-head and how-do-you-do? back...

Regardless of how much the storm seems to be raging out of control, you will be able to handle it, dear Leo. Have confidence in your own grounded nature. There is a reason why you take the time to address the details and plan your moves carefully. Today is one of those days when you will see the rewards of those diligent actions, especially in the areas of love, beauty, and your deepest emotions.

Got a brief message and it could well be two weeks.

I think I'll cogitate on this during another 12 hour shift at work today.

Edit 23:35

Regardless of how much the storm seems to be raging out of control, you will be able to handle it, dear Leo. Have confidence in your own grounded nature. There is a reason why you take the time to address the details and plan your moves carefully. Today is one of those days when you will see the rewards of those diligent actions, especially in the areas of love, beauty, and your deepest emotions.

I'm not sure exactly what the horoscope was (timelines are arbitrary after all) but maybe I am vindicated.

What's most worrying out of all this is the attention I'm paying to horoscopes.

Club me with a big clock now!

I've decided, before sending the letter, to have on more face to face meeting (well attempt to meet up) before sending it off.

So I've left a message on the answerphone. In the interim, the letter is being tweaked.

I'm not sure whether this is because of my own sense of fairness and giving people a chance or weakness on my part.

We'll see.

Bit of a tough week but somewhat eased by going to a Sia gig tonight.

I'm sure I've mentioned her before, and the last video I posted on here was her singing Death by Chocolate. She's really hitting the big time now and was on Later... with Jools Holland this week.

It was nice to bop along to the up-beat numbers and sing along and cogitate to the slower numbers and her tunes that are really connecting to the situation I'm in at the moment. And I caught up with a last.fm user who went to the gig too - always nice to meet new people with a similar taste.

I should head to bed - I'm covering the long shift tomorrow for one of the other docs who has had to attend to her ailing grandfather. Which will be my third long day of four - but I had today off and glad to be able to help her in her time of need. It's made me feel a wee bit better about things anyway to know I'm of some use to someone!

This is a good day to look at the big picture and to discuss your ideas with others, dear Leo. As you walk down the street, make sure you stay attentive to what is going on all around you. If you continue to stay preoccupied by one specific issue, you may never see some of the other very important pieces of the greater whole, even though they are obvious to everyone else.

Good advice for everyone I think. Today was part of that peeping my head above the parapet and getting started again. Study day at a conference in my specialty-to-be with a few more hints about whether or not there will be any job opportunities coming up in the next year.

So far I know that me and one other trainee are hoping to do palliative medicine. What has been unknown is the number of jobs. Potentially, there are two jobs available (wouldn't that be marvellous?). However, that depends on the two senior registrars getting all their paperwork and a consultant post to move on to so we can move in at the bottom of the ladder.

Timing wise, this isn't possible before we are supposed to before interviews in three months time. The options are to leave the posts until they have got full confirmation of the two leaving, which would me me hanging on till I can apply for those. Or moving region and apply for jobs in the rest of the UK.

The other is to create a holding post for the two-to-leave, allowing the new recruits in.

As choices have to be submitted in a couple of months time - there is not much time left for them to decide...

In the meantime all I can do is do my best to work hard, do the assessments and work towards the exams in February. The job situation is out of my hands.

A damp October evening. Now it is getting really autumnal - but pleasantly so. After the shock of the end of summer one can appreciate the drawing in of nights, cosiness, the falling of leaves.

And as the curtain falls on a musical evening of a consummate artisan - traversing themes from joy, art, longing, despair, politics, resignation and hope - two figures make their way into the night. Conversation is polite, but not committing. Edging their way through crowds, jostling, unclear where the destination is, obstructions in the way.

They finally make their way to the car park. Eyes and heads heavy. Waiting. No movement. No war, but no peace either. The pulsing tension increases, biliousness rises. The inevitable must happen.

[Lyrics here]

I'm sat in a car park waiting for movement.

Yesterday evening regrettably didn't take off. He was knackered. And I vomited in the the car park with a splitting headache. Attractive

So I retired to my hotel and he to his home. None the wiser.

I've suggested we should meet up in the coming week. Hopefully we'll be able to. How deflating.

Well, perhaps this is it. A significant weekend in my life.

But first some breaking news. HairDye - Sand's best friend and previous prophylactic in clear-the-air talks - has apparently become something of a stalker to him. Clinging and demanding attention, not keen on him seeing other people, "sad that he likes boys". I don't think it has quite dawned on him yet but it is pretty clear that she wants his babies.

And it kind of clarifies a few things about her and the dynamics of what has been going on.

I said we'd have a heart-to-heart and try and sort a few things out about that situation. However, it does beg the question about how I take it from here. He now has two people who have become possessive, jealous and controlling on him (HairDye and the ex). In his mind, what is there to say that I won't become the same? If I say anything will I be taking advantage of a fragile situation?

Yet, here is the opportunity to show myself as the strong, independent person who recognises his needs not only to be with someone, but to be an individual. The last thing I want is some cloying, oppressive relationship with the nature of my job, my goals for this year and my geographically scattered but close friends.

I fear that the timing could not be worse.

But if I don't take this opportunity now - when will the next one arise?

So it is time for decisive action. I just hope that I am a good salesman.

Wish me luck. The answer will probably come in music video format on Sunday...