Excitements

"Song" is now on youtube. You know you want to watch it! Unfortunately, the 4th video is taking a while to process, but you can watch most of it already.
EDIT: The 4th video is now available!




Part 1 of 4


Part 2 of 4


Part 3 of 4



Part 4 of 4

This napkin drives me mad! "Less napkins"? Which fool came up with that? And which brain-dead monkey in management said "Duuh, yeah, do dat"?

Short Fuse and the cinema

Rehearsals for Short Fuse have now begun. Alex and Vicky are putting on their adaptation of a part of "The Golem" by a Mr Meyrink (I think) for the Short Fuse event on the 6th of Feb at Liberties Bar in Camden. I am playing the new, and very exciting, mandolin (or tiny -guitar as it has now been dubbed) for the performance, as it requires some traditional music at various intervals. Rehearsals went quite well - I'm particularly enjoying my easy part of simply sitting in the corner of the stage tinkling away while people act around me. So that's how minstrels felt!

In other news, I went to the cinema with Alex last Friday to see "The Reader", featuring Kate Winslet's Golden Globe winning role as a concentration camp guard (lots of WW2 holocaust-related films around at the moment) who strikes up an affair with a 15yr old school boy, who later becomes a law student and is present at her trial for war-crimes. It made interesting viewing, and raised some interesting questions into the worth of trials, particularly of those lower down the orders (and the Nuremberg defense, which is only invalid if a moral choice was available to the defendant). Kate Winslet was fantastic, and as always I was amazed by Mr Fiennes' range. What a range... Again, a very different role from that he played in 'In Bruges', which was in turn very different from that in 'the Constant Gardener'.

Talking about ranges, there was an interesting blog about Kate Winslet's range on the Telegraph Online today, talking about the fact that she hides out of the lime-light which enables her to maintain such an impressive range of performances. It argued that because she keeps herself apart from celebrity culture we can forget we are watching 'Kate Winslet', and get fully involved in her role.

The revision continues - even Charlie is getting into it...

NEWS FLASH

17 DEGREES!!!!

What Will it Take to Heat this House?

A little Maximo Park quote there ... a group of guys from the north who are probably loving the cold. It has been very cold in Cambridge, our house is struggling to reach above 14C inside. I recently resorted to nailing old curtains over the back door which has helped the temperature claw up to 16C. And no, the irony that I spent Sunday on my knees insulating someone else's loft has not been lost on me. I'm tempted to offer to do ours to the landlady. AND, everywhere in Cambridge has sold out of fan heaters! Even the disgustingly tacky bright pink Argos heaters had all gone. What will we do? What will it take to heat this house? Currently it's taking alot of gas and some chunky energy bills to... how shall we say... tempt it out of single figures?

On the other hand, it has meant my new dressing gown has been christened in exceptional style - getting hours of wear every day (pretty much from the moment I enter the house to the moment I go to bed). And my flat cap has had a little outing to vet-school. This brought a flurry of comments, possibly each one more sarcastic than the last (or less sarcastic... no... AS sarcastic?). Or not. I shall continue the wearing until everyone is used to the image of Tom as a posh farmer/landed gentry type-fellow. Excellent.

AND, we have an exam on Monday - Urology which is a LIST. LISTY LISTY LIST. A few tasty little concepts to get into, like the "nephrotic syndrome", and the big spider of renal failure, but apart from that, it's listylist. However, it did inspire Alex to give life to the beautiful song, #There's a hole in my glomerulus dear Liza, dear Liza#. Joy!

Tom

I've edited this post to remove my excessive use of the passive tense. Why do I think that writing in the passive makes me sound more capable of writing?

Yesterday - Rotation day! I started the term with Obstetrics, which was a 'self taught' rotation, where we 'learnt' the finer details of calving and fetotomies. I won't go into the gory details, but suffice to say it involved wheelie bins with holes cut in the bottom. Classic.

That afternoon, we ventured to Mary's where she made us kedgeree, a weird Scottish/Indian dish of smoked fish, egg and rice. Only the Scots could think up something like that - with a little friendly Indian input. It was surprisingly nice - an official version of Andrew's very successful smoked fish risotto that he made last year.

I have spent this evening resting my weary legs, and Alex and I have trawled the internet for interesting geographical marvels:

Ship Graveyards of Russia
The tiny city of Diomede on Little Diomede, the US Owned Island in the Bering Strait - photo
Chernobyl, Ukraine
The US Mexico Border in El Paso, complete with moat(?) separating the two

The Tale of the Dusty Loft

I spent much of today hidden away from the sunshine, under a thin layer of slate amidst dust and other people's things.

One of my friends has spent the last few years doing garden work for one of our old supervisors, and his latest (non-garden related) job was to insulate her loft - for it was done in a very slap-dash way by whomever did it before. And so, with a little assistance from me, the loft was insulated. Boards were pulled up, had squishy fibreglass lain beneath them, and then replaced. I was glad of the face-mask provided, for it was black with dust afterwards - nice to know that could have been coating my alveoli, and yet, was not!

So, now I know how to insulate a loft - a useful life skill no?

Tomorrow lectures begin again... once more unto the breach!

Christmas trees were sold, once again, for the 4th year, though this time at a *new* site in Richmond. Under the dappled shade of leaf-less trees, and the new found comfort of a portacabin we sold and talked-up trees until darkness fell and then beyond. Usefully, all of the local chains sold out early, which caused a cascade of customers which kept us busy and distracted from the huge job of raking up bales of muddy straw.

I worked in Northallerton (north Yorkshire) for a few weeks at the start of the Christmas Holiday, and it was cold. Not cold like we get in London. Proper, consistently in the negatives cold. I got snowed in, and spent one morning digging Mercedes drivers out of the snow in a small village with a few police men and women, and all the villagers. It was very rationing-time community spirited, and I for one loved it! Plus the vetting was fun too. I tried my hand at surgery for the first time, and managed to a reasonable job of cat castration and spaying, so hopefully all will be well.

London was also pretty cold, though nothing in comparison. Luckily, I managed to buy some leather (pimp) gloves for driving in after Christmas, which has staved off the frost bite. Luckily, it provided ample opportunity for some more seasonal photography, which included this tasty snap of a crow in Richmond Park a few days after Christmas. I love the colour of the sky.

Another apology for lack of posts - I have been whisked away to places far away (well, Yorkshire) this December, and was, on occasions, probably further from the internet than you are from a rat in London, which I suppose is quite unusual when you think about it.

Tomorrow I set off for Cambridge once more, though first, I shall backdate a few photos.

Tom