Tag: writing

Future Plans – Pre-op Chore List

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

Assuming that the frequency of hospital appointments remains reduced we can start planning for the future. So far there is no “show stopper” for the pencilled in total hip replacement surgery in late autumn. There are two major appointments for which we do not yet have dates: a pre-op anaesthesia assessment and a CT cardio-angiogram. The latter is due.

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The cardiologist suggested that this would probably be ok, but nobody has imaged me thus, yet. Given they operate on frail old nannas I should be good to go. But it may advise on my increased risk. I also need a full dental 360 degree check.

It seems a long way off but when you have a big garden, scale can eat time. I have to think about doing the heavy donkey work before the operation because I will be very incapacitated for 6 weeks or so, through Christmas. No driving for me…We live alone and have to hope that the wife’s health holds. If that starts to fail we are in deep shit.

I am not a fan of last minute dot com.

Chores:

  1. Sewerage check – lift the inspection covers and use plumber’s rods to clear the 30 metres to the cess pit. Should last 3-6 months.
  2. Wood – we need to order some oven dried wood. There is probably about 1 tonne of wood left over to be sorted and sized. I may need to split the pine left over from Tempest Ciaran. Perhaps another tonne or so. I will need to break and clear two wooden pallets. These can be sized for kindling. Two palettes is about 3 months. They may need to be cut to fire-stick ready size. Perhaps I need a new splitting axe.
  3. I need to move some more earth to shore up the side of the pond which has a slow leak. A couple of loads of 250kg of dirt should help it cope with the full pond. The pond always fills to overflow with the autumn rain.
  4. Need to clean and power wash the external hallway. The swallows who nested there will head off for Africa and leave the guano behind.
  5. We need to secure someone to help out in the gardening. The maintenance pruning needs to be put on hold
  6. The pink rambler rose at 2 metres  high needs dead heading.
  7. I have strimming and mole trapping to be done. There will be one or two full property boundary strims to do at 8000 metres squared that is a bit of strimming frenzy.

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  • Indoors we need to sugar soap wash the room near the wood oven. This will provoke painting of much of the downstairs. That is a big job.
  • The downstairs floor needs to be solvent cleaned with acetone to remove dirt accumulation from excess glue. I will need to use my favourite product Mr Propre floor cleaner with a mop.
  • The upstairs kitchen needs to be floored. It is the only remaining room which we have not done already. We have floored in excess of 200 square metres.
  • It may need a lick of paint too.
  • The repaired volet boxes need cleaned and filled, painted to bring back up to standard.
  • There is one room with loose wallpaper which needs removed and new paper perhaps glued in place.

We need to figure out if I need a downstairs hospital bed. The spiral staircase looks to be a bit tricky. The loo and shower are already disabled enabled downstairs.

Do we need a bigger freezer and for me to prepare spicey foods?

Knowing the way things work here I will need a yellow bio-hazard sharps box for the used anti-coagulant syringes, which I will be self-darting.

This seems to be what the next few months looks like heading into year end.

That is probably the scope of it…

I can already use a Zimmer frame and peg about on crutches.

Where can I get a black eye patch and a parrot?

Best Ever Dream – Dancing With Ganesh Dream 20-9-19

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Still a bit shaky. I have just woken from my afternoon nap, which usually results from my midday codeine. It is a few weeks after I broke the head of my femur and had it repaired with a Titanium nail. I was taken to A&E in an ambulance. I am using a Zimmer frame and have a hospital bed downstairs.

Wow! That was the most intense dream I have ever had.

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I arrive at the edge of a walled garden and am welcomed through a large gateway by an upright Ganesh. He has all the typical elephant features, but his gait is that of a human being. He is iridescent blue in colour and has a twinkle in his eyes. I am welcomed into his “humble abode”. He shows me around his palace gardens, gardens that are tropical and scented. There are flowers everywhere. The garden is filled with water features. He takes me to a partially covered courtyard which has red-brown gravel. The pieces of gravel are near perfect spheres. He sits me down and we take tea together brought by his servants. I understand that this courtyard is where he practises his dancing.

A group of Indian musicians file in and seat themselves on the ground. Ganesh signals to them and they start playing. He gets up and starts to dance. His movements are exquisite, and his hands alternate between mudras beautifully and each mudra is exact and precise. He beckons me and starts to teach me some steps of his dance. {In the dream my leg functions fine.} Slowly I get the steps and we are starting to whirl and circle. It is entrancing. He stops suddenly and takes a blue-metallic AUM symbol out of his tunic. He walks over to me and presses it on my Anja centre. Slowly it penetrates and dissolves into me. I am left with a tattoo like impression on my skin. Ganesh smiles radiantly and we continue to dance.

I look at my body and notice that it has somehow taken on the same hue as Ganesh, which pleases me greatly in the dream. He laughs, at my surprise.

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I awake with a start and my first instinct is look at my arms. They are not blue. They are lightly tanned and freckled with a few bruises from all the needles. It takes a while to assemble the reality of the room. I get up and go outside to smoke.

Challenges – Genetics – Having to Endure – Lama Dorje

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A working hypothesis I have is that because I do not strut about, talk a lot and generally bullshit, people feel that I am need of education by them. Somehow, they are kind enough to bestow the benefit of their grandiose and unsolicited opinion on me so that I, a mere lowly pleb, might learn from their magnificence. So many offer me their opinions. Obviously, I am in dire need of education.

It is a catch 22. Do you let them rabbit on {endlessly} or flash intellect and make them feel more insecure than they already are. I don’t have an answer. Neither works well.

You may infer from the above that I am an arrogant arsehole. Your reflection in the mirror which is me may not reveal my essence.

Given all the tests in a medical sense that I am having its sounds a bit like someone meandering around in search of some kind of elusive diagnosis of sorts. That could be the case. Or it could simply be the generosity of the French healthcare system in action. The tendency for prophylaxis here is higher than in the UK.

The “health” finger continues to point at genetics. There is a non-normal make up, perhaps. Maybe I am special, so fucking special, or a creep, or a weirdo.

In my extensive recapitulations there is a recurring theme, “having to endure”. I have had to endure all sorts of things starting with bullying at school(s) and being gossiped about extensively, especially when my back was turned and I was not there. I am not paranoid; I have anecdotal evidence in support of this tendency. People curry favour by gossiping and in the past, they have claimed power by association to me. Those days are long gone.

I have an inkling that the current health drama belongs to the subset of “having to endure” challenges. There is little I can do; I simply have to endure and remain calm.

Śāntideva in the Bodhicaryāvatāra, has a whole chapter on forbearance. Bodhidharma was rumoured to have sat watching a wall for nine years.

Maybe one day instead of enduring I may give both barrels. I doubt many could handle it if I ramped up to 9/10 face to face with them. It would be very intense. Outside of experience.

The other working hypothesis I have is that I am tangentially involved in the drama, schemes and socio-political shenanigans of others. The thing is they are over “there” and I am only truly involved in their illusions. People make shit up; they make a drama out of it and somehow, I am caught up in their imaginations. I am written into their imaginary scripts.

I used to wear black Levi’s 501 jeans for decades. I now wear army surplus combat trousers. This dress makes me look a bit like a pikey prepper. I do not look for one minute like an ex-intellectual or the co-founder of a high technology high power laser company. So people tend, in the first instance, to talk down to me, even worse I do not speak high quality French, God’s only intellectual language. I must therefore be an idiotic stupid moron. They judge a book by their mis-interpretation of the cover. The French are as, if not more, arrogant than the English.

What can you do? Let them rabbit on {endlessly}. There is no point in trying to change their habits or self-opinion.

The wife and I have a joke. If I wore Buddhist robes people would treat me entirely differently. If they saw me thus attired in their dreams, they would find it weird.

“Alan always wore jeans in life!!”

There is a part of me that might order some robes on line and do a TikTok type experiment. Go in jeans to an estate agent one day and in robes the next…

But that would be fucking about…

Is there some as yet unseen diagnoses?

Or am I simply enduring the Gattling gun fire of multiple medical tests and appointments?

The current bet is towards the latter…

Myeloid Bone Biopsy – Charlie Chaplin Cars – Elephant – Blood Tests Dream 22-06-2025

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Here are last night’s dreaming segments.

The dream starts in a hospital operating theatre. There are people dressed in blue medical scrubs and with face masks and gloves on. On the screen is an X-ray like image of my right hip joint. They are using the apparatus to guide the placement of a long needle like structure into the ball of my femur and what remains of the gap between. I am awake and partially sat up. I am watching the procedure. A nurse is assisting the man doing the procedure others are monitoring vital signs.

He is saying to me that he is taking a tissue and bone sample for a Myeloid biopsy. The word is specific. They are going inside the bone to take this biopsy. It is important that they do this. This Myeloid sample will be sent off to the labs so that they can get a better understanding of what is going on. The scene is in colour and I can sense the cool air-conditioning in the “operating theatre”.

The scene changes and I am now in a black and white film in an urban setting. I am being chased by people driving black old school Charlie Chapin style cars. It is all very slapstick and the film being projected has a few flaws. The chase is semi frantic on the part of the pursuers. It is keystone cops and farcical. There is much skidding around corners. Although they are pursuing me, I am not interested. I am waiting for the results of my Myeloid biopsy. They will not leave me alone even though I am unwell. They are foolish.

The scene changes and, back in colour, I am at the edge of a field. Along the edge of the field is a fence. The other side of the field is a wood / jungle. The field has just been harvested. In the distance the gap between the wood and the field increases. I can see a small baby elephant. It is standing next to some saplings which are waist height to me. As I move towards him he moves, unhurried, off into the jungle. I arrive and there are two short rows of these saplings with green leaves. They are in a line and each row has several plants. I understand that these saplings are medicinal.

I am now on a Caribbean island; there is a sense of windward. The care home / hospital buts up against a white sandy bay and has a promenade. It is tropical. On one side to the left is the ocean and on the other a well-kept dark green lawn. There are water sprinklers going on the lawn. There are coconut palms. I am a little late for my appointment. I enter the building and there are two women dressed in starchy crisp 1950s style nurses uniforms with little hats. They woman on reception welcomes me very warmly. I am a regular and they like me, care for me. One tall nurse who is white welcomes me in a strong Jamaican patois. I respond in a like dialect only mine is play. She says that even though it is her lunch hour she will see me her “favourite” patient. She is teasing me playfully. She takes blood from the vein in my left elbow joint and from the artery on my right hand. She injects the arterial blood into a gas chromatograph. She says that even though I am something of a pin cushion these days she can always find a blood vessel. There is a sense that these blood tests are a very regular occurrence.

The dream ends.

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Notes:

Myeloid tissue, in the bone marrow sense of the word myeloid (myelo- + -oid), is tissue of bone marrow, of bone marrow cell lineage, or resembling bone marrow, and myelogenous tissue (myelo- + -genous) is any tissue of, or arising from, bone marrow; in these senses the terms are usually used synonymously, as for example with chronic myeloid/myelogenous leukemia.

Can Aliens Get Green Cards?

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As is often the case when there is an atmospheric high pressure area over Western Europe in summer the issue of cross channel immigration is in the news. We have ICE-ICE-BABY doing raids, imprisoning and perhaps deporting people in the USA. A hint of xenophobia is an important ingredient in any right-wing government as is a deep suspicion of the intellectuals and the scientists.

“Come the time of the cultural revolution they will be first up against the wall!!”

The gist is that illegals, aliens and other non-pure bloods are unwelcome. Interestingly second or third generation immigrants in the UK are often very antiimmigration.

“Keep those brown boys and girls out! Especially those who won’t eat bacon sandwiches!!”

Conspiracy theorists are very interested in interplanetary visitors. Last time I went to area 51 I met a bunch of likeminded individuals.

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We had a very good discussion.

One of the core tenets of Scientology is past lives. Each thetan may have had many, some of which are not of this world, extraplanetary. Technically this makes them aliens, they have not applied for entry visas into the USA or UK. Or for that matter Earth. They have snuck in without permission and documentation, which makes them illegal aliens.

Trump could go after Tom Cruise and get Elon Musk to try to repatriate him. This would be good TV and a sure fire ratings winner. The Church of Scientology would appeal. This saga would be brilliant clickbait on the internet. Musk could be an alien too; hence he is building a ship to take him home.

A while back someone {who knew} told me that I would probably pass the auditing for some of the {higher} operating thetan levels in Scientology. I very nearly started the process on Tottenham Court Road when I was first year undergraduate at UCL, back in the last century. So there is an outside chance that I too am an illegal alien. My body has a UK passport and a French Carte de Séjour.

How would you tell if someone from another planet had incarnated into a human body. What would you measure? The DNA would be the same…

Maybe there are many extraterrestrial “aliens” already among us, some of whom do indeed have Green Cards.

Social Discomfort – Social Anxiety Disorder

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I think it fair to suggest that social discomfort is a pillar of comedy. We all find it funny if sometimes uncomfortable.

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The more uptight, pompous and status oriented one is the more likely one is to experience social discomfort. Heaven forbid that someone do something inconsistent with their social position, something gauche, something off trend. A pleb should kneel and kotow. They must know and accept their place.

At the Babraham Institute once, one Ph.D. student wrote in the feedback for a course that I gave, that it was unprofessional for me to say that my former employers, Imperial College, were a cold efficiency employer. They were not a hugs kisses and birthday cake bunch. He felt perhaps that I was slagging them off. Though many would have been happy to be called cool {cold} and efficient, competitive and perhaps ruthless. As a young man he had a lot to learn about reality and maybe his idealism would soon be tarnished.

Psychologists have a fundamental assumption, that people like to socialise and that they SHOULD do so. It underpins much psychological diagnoses according to my non-erudite and hence inexpert eye. It is clear to me that my unwillingness to play the social game has impacted on my career advancement. One could say that socialisation is a societal pre-requisite for promotion, a needed social skill.

On the DSM-5 social anxiety scale one is asked if one avoids social contacts, extensively prepares for them and self-medicates in order to face them, the so-called Dutch courage. It suggests that one is fearful of social situations. Maybe one simply does not like them and therefore avoids them {like the plague}. It is not uncommon for people to get pissed, smoke weed and snort Charlie in social situations.

Does that make them psychologically ill and diagnosable?

I’ll postulate.

Modern psychological wisdom is prejudiced against introverts and introversion. Such behaviours are seen as faulty and in need of fixing.

As usual it is the extroverts who dominate the “air time” or soap box.

In terms of the anxiety disorder, I meet the avoidance criteria but not the fear.

Is it bad not to want to surround yourself with gobshites arseholes and knobheads? To not share a finger buffet and talk endless shit with them?

Why not avoid something that you do not enjoy?

This kind of avoiding seem pretty darned sane to me.


In general I dial back on the boffinaciousness because it causes social discomfort and nobody likes a know-it-all. Which means that you often have to wait for people to catch up. I used to self-handicap with a lot of weed, which also enhances patience in all areas apart from munchies.

In France some are seemingly embarrassed to speak poor English, where no English are embarrassed with their appalling French. It is weird. Is it about control? There is social discomfort. They do not slow down {in French} and talk to you like a moron as is common {in English} in the UK. I sense a discomfort.

I went to see the zebra at the zoo.

I’ll postulate further.

Social discomfort and the fear thereof is very limiting and causes many problems. Things that need to be broached and discussed are avoided in case of social awkwardness occurring.

Fear of loss of face {FOLOF} is almost as big as fear of missing out {FOMO}.

Even though I am very introverted I have good interpersonal skills as a part of my chameleon toolkit. Strangely the most important social skill of all is being able to listen. It puts people at ease.

Is being uncomfortable with BS a clinically diagnostic malady? This is a social discomfort but not one of awkwardness of embarrassment, simply preference

Is there a DSM-5 criteria list for the Avoidance of Bull Shit Personality Disorder?

Do we need to train people to better accept tolerate and otherwise believe bull shit?

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Anthropology Research – Non Starter?

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Following on from a thread raised by yesterday’s dream I have been looking at the theme of Anthropology. Carlos Castaneda was awarded a Ph.D. at University of California Los Angeles in Anthropology. If I understand it correctly viewing his thesis requires and in-person visit. {I have checked.}

A while back I applied for a Ph.D. position in Branching Space-Time as per Belnap at a Dutch university. I was genuine in that application; I would have enjoyed it but was not eligible for funding as I already had a Ph.D. in Chemical Physics. Another philosophy academic who was looking into quantum told me that I was not a trained “philosopher” and he wanted such. I doubt he had ever played with high resolution or ultrafast lasers. He had no personal hands on experience of quantum effects.

I found today that at Social Anthropology Cambridge University a Tibetan Buddhist monk got a Ph.D. there.

Applicants for Ph.D. research are encouraged to approach staff members to elicit supervision and then to make a formal application. I suspect that an application from me would be non-standard. It might raise an eyebrow or two. It would probably cause social discomfort.

Unfortunately my university personal tutor is now dead and I have not spoken with my Ph.D. supervisor in over two decades. So I do not meet the referee criteria outlined on the university web site:

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Academic referees

An academic referee will be someone who has guided and assessed your academic work. 

For example:

  • your personal tutor
  • your tutor for a dissertation, extended essay or piece of project work
  • the teaching lead on a module of particular relevance to your proposed postgraduate course
  • your tutor from an academic internship at your current or another institution

At least one of your academic references should be a tutor or supervisor from your current or most recent degree course. If you have just started a one-year Master’s course and staff do not know your work well yet, you may prefer to choose a referee from your previous degree course.

PhD students should not be nominated as referees. If you have been taught by a PhD student and they know your work well, you can encourage your referee to talk to them.

Your referee will not normally be your proposed Cambridge supervisor unless they fulfil the requirements above and no others are available.

Professional referees

A professional referee will normally be someone who has had responsibility for your appraisal and delivery of work.

For example:

  • your current or previous line manager
  • a senior colleague who knows your work well, such as a director
  • a project manager for a project on which you’ve worked

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There is a part of me tempted to open up a dialogue. It could be fun but probably predictable in outcome. Rules are rules after all.

Maybe I should approach the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at Oxford or look at the Open University. Is there a French equivalent?

Access beyond pay wall for journals could be handy…

A journal recently wanted to charge me $40 dollars for an article I wrote…

It is only a couple of pages long…

If operated on I am going to have few months out of the garden…

Aux vrays difciples de Hermes – Immortalité

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There is a very real likelihood of ancient non mainstream, dare I say it, non-peer reviewed knowledge, being undervalued and forgotten. Some manuscripts have been kept. This one has a publication date of 1710 by Limojon de Saint-Didier, Alexandre-Toussaint {approximately 1630-1689}. These are {inter alia} in the internet archive and at Wellcome Collection library, there are other Alchemical texts.

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I have seen a 1699 frontispiece for this.

Peter the Philosopher was made famous by J. K. Rowling. In the Hermetic mercurial tradition, there are references on turning quicksilver into gold. Here silver {quick} is matter and gold is spirit. Transmutation of consciousness is out of gross form to achieve liberation {nirvana} and cease the endless cycle of rebirth and hence death. One never dies again; one ceases to be mortal and hence achieves im-mortality. It does not mean living in meat, incarnate, for ever and ever {or a very long time}. It means not being reborn. No more dying.

Just as in esoteric Vajrayana Buddhism there are Hermetic mandalas:

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The symbolism in sketches like this is extensive and cannot be understood entirely rationally. That approach gets nowhere other than intellectual masturbation. The thought form has to be built with care and the consequences of making it, managed in “real” meaty life. It is the battle royal of soul in matter. The Caduceus in not solely two dimensional. People imagine, incorrectly, that the stone, the rock, Pierre is a thing, a talisman, a magic artefact. They may fuck around in a chemistry lab trying to synthesise it.

One can only grasp and attain these mandalas fully when one is ready. Whoever drew this one was no novice….

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It is a shame that required orthodoxy often squanders knowledge and burns books. Socio-political position and self-advancement so often overshadows. The powerful often destroy knowledge, wisdom and science if it threatens their power base. Because knowledge is power, in a sense, those in search of mundane power seek to handicap and destroy it. Anything not catholic enough in terms of the papal edicts, whatever shape or form they may be, is ostracised and attacked.

Soon New-speak and The Ministry of Truth rule the roost and all dissidents are punished.

In the kingdom of the blind the one eyed man is king.

This pattern is a historically repeating one.

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Sometimes the esoteric can survive in the shadows. Sometimes things are lost for ever. We will never know, by definition, what is lost already.

The orthodoxy always ridicules and talks down, bad mouths, that which does not conform or obey. It has always been thus and it will probably continue to be…

Former Imperial Colleagues – Big Japan Trip Dream – 01-06-2025

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Here is last night’s dream. Out of the blue. I have not spoken with any of the people in it for ~ twenty years!!

The dream starts in a small seminar room. It has a London, Imperial College feel. The décor is bland with diffuse bright overhead lighting. There are multipurpose tables at which are set two people, each. The tables are arranged in a U-shape and I am at a table by myself at the focus of the U-shape.

Sat around the tables are various ex-colleagues from Imperial College. They are all professors and some are now “big-cheeses”. They are all from the age cohort slightly younger than me. My direct age equivalent ex-colleagues are noticeable by their absence. The “job” has been handed to the younger incumbents. They are mostly male, with a few women. I had no “problem” with any of them historically. They have the brief to find a solution and make amends. Something has been cobbled together, some suggestions. This they have just presented to me. I cannot recall what.

I say to them that I am in no way interested in what they have just suggested. That they have the wrong idea about where I am coming from and what I might want. Which is close to nothing. That they are looking at things solely from their perspective. I am not like them and do not share their motivations.

There is a faint ripple of unease. I say that I am leaving and walk slowly, relaxed, out of the door, which is behind me.

The scene changes to a London airport terminal. I have been booked along with others for a big high profile visit to Japan which includes some technology and some cultural things. I am not keen from the get-go. I notice that my chest is wheezy and take a Ventolin inhaler. It remains a bit wheezy. I decide that it would be mad for me to travel to Japan for a long high profile visit. I know that the tour organiser will be at the airport well before all the others might arrive. Implicit is some of my age equivalent academic peer group. I make my way there.

I approach the woman who is young and smartly dressed with dark hair. I explain that she had better cancel my flight and all the other things associated with the trips in order to get as much as a refund as possible. She is unconvinced. I wheeze for her. She says that for the insurance she will need a medical opinion. A doctor is summoned and they concur that is it is unwise for me to travel. She cancels my ticket. She asks me to try to buy a ticket to find out what the going rate is. I go to the British Airways desk and inquire. The price is multiple thousands of pounds because it is cherry blossom season. I go back to the woman with this information. She is in a video call with a Japanese restaurant chain cancelling my meal plan for the week, which amount to tens of thousands of Yen. She cancels my suite at the hotel in central Tokyo. I say that I made a private reservation at Langham’s restaurant where I have been before and ask her to cancel this. She does.

There is some time before all the others get there. She tells me to buy a ticket to London which I do. I do not know where the airport is now. I sit down at a computer terminal and start doing a Japanese language quiz. One of her colleagues comes over to me and is surprised that I am doing so well on the Japanese. I explain to him that I have been many times before and spent time with a man and his family in Sendai. He suggests that the man was gay. I say not because I have been around quite a few gay men and understand them well. He is upset that I am not going on their carefully organised trip. I say that I am too unwell to travel and that in general my health is very poor. People do not understand how bad it is.

The dream ends.