Itchiness predominates my life at the moment although the medication taken in the evenings is resulting is deep sleeps where although I wake to go to the toilet as usual I awake in the mornings feeling refreshed for the rest of the day and I have stopped feeling sleepy after taking food. It is a good trade, for the moment. I wrote this on Monday after first few days of taking the drug Loratadine, an antihistamine prescribed for the treatment of Urticaria which covers a multitude of pathophysiology, diagnosis, types and related conditions according the greater explainer of everything Wikipedia. However over the past two days the rash itchiness areas have spread to two other parts of the body and it is not clear if this is as a reaction to Loratadine or the itch relief cream or from having touched the affected area and then touched the other parts of the body or from a combination of both. Because of this I have written to the doctor seeking advice whether to continue with the medication itch relief cream, or to cease one or both or for another treatment to be tried.
The sleep affect is interesting because from what I have read Lorartadine is regarded as an antihistamine drug with one of the least sedative impacts and in the USA is marketed because of this and sold over the counter. If the medication has caused the spread or has to be time limited I will enquire if there is an alternative which could bring the same sleep relief.
On the way to the Health centre I stopped at a pub restaurant with voucher for traditional breakfast and small coffee or tea. This was an excellent decision as the breakfast was well cooked and presented comprising egg, sausage, two pieces of bacon, hash brown, beans and a good size mushroom. The price was £1.99 compared to a coffee and bacon Role at the Ship and Royal and £3.86 usual price.
The relaxed good humour state in which I awoke on Monday helped me cope when the computer refused to start and took time to sort itself out and the Norton announced it was no longer provided protection took a while to sort itself out and re establish itself so that everything then worked normally. This has happened since the arrival of the latest Vista service pack which may explain what happened. or the consequence of loading the Luxor game, (more on that later), or most likely that I had knocked the mains connection loose when going behind the desk to open to close the curtain at the far side of the window. Before moving the TV in front of the gas fire I used to pull the far curtain backwards with the consequence that one and sometimes more of the hooks would come off the rail leaving a gap when the curtains were closed again. Since moving the TV I can squeeze between the TV and the side of the desk to behind the desk and reach either the book case, previously I had to get under the desk, or open and close the curtain. I can also use the tie back which increases the light into the room. Without this development it was necessary to move chair and trolley to place a step ladder and then stand on the desk to refit the curtain. However as the space between the desk and bookcase is still tight I may have knocked the power cable or it may never have been properly connected since the great crash when I dissembled and assembled. Whatever the cause once righted I copied all the current documentation and records to one DVD, the non work pictures to another and the work photos were then added to the separate DVDs for Creative Work, Development, Events, Records and Confidential. I then had a monster purge on the loose papers in the work room for two reasons I needed to find some papers to complete the latest organisation of household and financial records with the water and Council Tax notices for this year astray. I also needed to find out how long the Internet and phone contract with the free lap top lasted. However the main motivation was to have control over what was where. Having completed the task I was then able to continued with work creating some new sets and registering and photographing others. I continued to make progress on Tuesday but decided to attend to correspondence after returning from the health centre with lunch and a film before completing these notes and finishing a snail mail letter.
One reason for the good humour start of the week was the decision of Cheryl Cole from Newcastle in the X factor to select the young 18 years singer from South Shields Joe (Joseph) McElderry as one of her three to compete with the other judges in the live audience participation competitions over the next three months. To reach this points he participated in the long selection process earlier in the year. Almost before one series ends people are invited to apply to attend auditions for the next series. The applications are processed by the large programme team and no doubt music agents throughout the land are seeking auditions for their hopefuls who are yet to be given recording contracts and these include the miner army of entertainers who are booked into clubs and pubs, or hired from weddings and other private parties. It is unlikely that they will be asked to undergo the process endured by everyone else. The great public of hopefuls are auditioned twice before they are get to perform, before the great four and this year there was the twist of performing before an audience of four thousand given the task of putting through 200 into the second phase of the competition. Over one week in London the 200 were reduced first to 100, then to 50 an then to 24.
The twenty four then get a mini trip to somewhere exotic, Dubai, California, Lake Como and Marrakesh in Morocco. Here each group of six are given a taste of the high life before a further performance , in theory to persuade the judge. The emotions of everyone are real enough knowing that they have a fifty fifty chance of achieving national recognition and then a 12 to 1 chance of reaching the very big time, at least for a few months with live shows around the country, a Christmas number one and a Long Playing record and a national tour. Only Will Young has stayed the course and lasted since winning Pop Idol although some have fashioned professional careers, albeit for a time. The selection of final 12 took place up to three months ago in order that the they can prepare songs for the live performances and those selected and their families have to keep quiet until the final twelve decision programme is shown as it was on Sunday. Even then publicity is strictly controlled and it is interested that only ITV regional News feature Joe, his school and pupils and not his home and the programmes called upon everyone in the region to vote for him. The BBC made no report. Joe who was South Tyneside’s Young Performer of the Year in 2008 is only quoted 12/1 by the bookies which is the greatest odds you can have of course. The Local Paper has already printed posters and Foreign Secretary Local Member of Parliament David Miliband expressed enthusiasm saying he had written to wish Joe well a couple fo weeks ago which suggests the publicity at this stage is being orchestrated. Wikipedia has an excellent coloured chart covering he 12 and the Ten week double shows with the singing on the Saturday and the results show on the Sunday with the winner of last year Amanda Burke and Robbie Williams appearing next Sunday and Susan Boyle later.
On the whole I supported the decision of the judges with the exception of one rejected by Simon Cowell. Of the 24 three had appeared in bands before, two had auditioned before and he appeared in Britain’s Got Talent, thus reinforcing the view that the average applicant is wasting their time. Adverse publicity probably resulted in in one or two not being chosen although did select a group of four girls who have all worked as strippers. He also selected to obnoxious twin seventeen years although this is clearly part of their act because they look good and are twins although Simon had hated them from the outset. It is also evident that in addition to looking for someone to win the contest attention is given to geography, to race and hard luck stories, with a recent death of partner or parent helpful, genuinely overcome poor health, minor delinquency and so on as well as having performing charisma.
Waking the dead has finished but the Fixer continues with most challenging moral question asking episode todate. The unit is asked to take out an assassin who has entered the country to kill the child heir to a fortune. The unit is approached by a Greek man whose business appears to have brought him to the attention of Unit and the government authorities and who reveals that the assassin is his brother. The assassin has been hired by the brother in law of the child’s mother who is killed while protecting her child as her protector is knocked out after the assassin escaped the two other members of the unit who were meant to stop and kill him beforehand. The child is taken to be looked after by the girl friend of the junior member of the team who lives in a flat on a housing estate traditionally used by the underclass. The flat is shared with the unit’s chief assassin. The unit pretend to have moved the child as bait to the home of the entrepreneur who asked them to intervene, and indeed there a confrontation between assassins which leads one breaking the neck of the other in a manner which caused me concern because it provided a dangerous demonstration to disturbed and psychopathic individuals.
While this is happening Tanya Outhwaite who is protecting the child and carer at the flat is persuaded to leave for a talk with the dodgy M5 administrator who wants to take over the unit. That she left her post in this way would led to summarily dismissal in most circumstances but I suppose Government arms length assassins are the exception. She has been persuaded away by the ambitious British homeland security official with a proposition to become his eyes and ears which as anticipated she rejects but her absence enables an operative for the official to break into the flat to plant a listening devices. However on encountering the girlfriend he kills her as humanely as possible on one for the most moving victim hopeless appeals moments ever seen on TV, only a short while after the girl has told the boyfriend that she wants the relationship to be become as serious as he has wanted, Understandably the young man is devastated when he finds the girl killed and there is a moving scene in which they secretly bury the girl in a closed cemetery. The chief assassin feeling the grief of his friend and having already encountered the treachery of the official sets out to kill him. However he is warned off by the Unit chief explaining that he has to take account of the bigger picture and that he will use what has happened to neutralise the official once and for all. However this is not good enough for the chief assassin who sets off on his mission. Tanya warns her boss and the grieving young man also pleads with his friend not to pursue this course. The head of the unit gives the instruction for someone else to officially stop his senior and most effective worker.
The audience hopes the assassin will succeed and the official is executed and that he will get away with a personal vendetta and form of justice but thinking people will appreciate that whatever aught to be the responsibility of those who work for national security on behalf of the people is the national security of the state. Individuals including bystanders will get hurt, some fatally. This in in the nature of government. It is also a reminder of the wisdom taught on the International Management course which I attended two decades ago. It is important to have at ones behest a group for the most creative and risk taking of individuals as from these will come the most commercially successful ventures. However when they foul up either in their professional activities or personal life it is essential to have the means of ensuring that they quickly disappear from the organisation and that all reference to their existence and ones involvement is eradicated with them. Such is life.
I do not remember seeing the film, the 1960 Richard Burton film The Bramble Bush before although I recognised a young Angie Dickenson as the of his school college friend who has Parkinson disease. The information about the illness of his friend who has qualified as a doctor is the only thing which persuades him back to the community of his childhood. The friend knows he is going die and wants Richard to look after his wife when he is gone. When the pain of the illness becomes too great he also pleads to be helped to die something which Richard tells a senior colleague. Richard resists a relationship with the wife especially when he learns that she has been having a physical relationship with a local law officer with ambitions of elected the District Attorney, The a nurse discovers that the man has been assisted to his death she blows the whistle and Richard is arrested and tried and found not built of murder by a jury of local people with a high regard for him. Beneath this simple plot there are two stories which gives the film its above average quality. When Richard was twelve years old he discovered his mother naked in bed with the father of his friend, a man who has become the town drunk. In a moving and believable disclosure Richard admits to Angie they he told his father who had them committed suicide jumping off a cliff above where Richard had run away to. While superficially he blames the man in bed with his mother, he blames himself for the death of his father. The second story is the development fo teh relationship between Richard and Angie in which they eventually fall in love and she becomes pregnant, but the death and the trial means that they do not feel it is right to be together at least for the foreseeable future. It has taken fifty years for the British Prosecutor to set down in the form of a consultation document the approach his office takes when confronted with the evidence that a death may have been assisted, What was made clear is that there will be a full investigation possible one which could lead to a criminal prosecution but if there was clear evidence that the deceased had requested help where death was the only outcome then there would be no prosecution
The sleep affect is interesting because from what I have read Lorartadine is regarded as an antihistamine drug with one of the least sedative impacts and in the USA is marketed because of this and sold over the counter. If the medication has caused the spread or has to be time limited I will enquire if there is an alternative which could bring the same sleep relief.
On the way to the Health centre I stopped at a pub restaurant with voucher for traditional breakfast and small coffee or tea. This was an excellent decision as the breakfast was well cooked and presented comprising egg, sausage, two pieces of bacon, hash brown, beans and a good size mushroom. The price was £1.99 compared to a coffee and bacon Role at the Ship and Royal and £3.86 usual price.
The relaxed good humour state in which I awoke on Monday helped me cope when the computer refused to start and took time to sort itself out and the Norton announced it was no longer provided protection took a while to sort itself out and re establish itself so that everything then worked normally. This has happened since the arrival of the latest Vista service pack which may explain what happened. or the consequence of loading the Luxor game, (more on that later), or most likely that I had knocked the mains connection loose when going behind the desk to open to close the curtain at the far side of the window. Before moving the TV in front of the gas fire I used to pull the far curtain backwards with the consequence that one and sometimes more of the hooks would come off the rail leaving a gap when the curtains were closed again. Since moving the TV I can squeeze between the TV and the side of the desk to behind the desk and reach either the book case, previously I had to get under the desk, or open and close the curtain. I can also use the tie back which increases the light into the room. Without this development it was necessary to move chair and trolley to place a step ladder and then stand on the desk to refit the curtain. However as the space between the desk and bookcase is still tight I may have knocked the power cable or it may never have been properly connected since the great crash when I dissembled and assembled. Whatever the cause once righted I copied all the current documentation and records to one DVD, the non work pictures to another and the work photos were then added to the separate DVDs for Creative Work, Development, Events, Records and Confidential. I then had a monster purge on the loose papers in the work room for two reasons I needed to find some papers to complete the latest organisation of household and financial records with the water and Council Tax notices for this year astray. I also needed to find out how long the Internet and phone contract with the free lap top lasted. However the main motivation was to have control over what was where. Having completed the task I was then able to continued with work creating some new sets and registering and photographing others. I continued to make progress on Tuesday but decided to attend to correspondence after returning from the health centre with lunch and a film before completing these notes and finishing a snail mail letter.
One reason for the good humour start of the week was the decision of Cheryl Cole from Newcastle in the X factor to select the young 18 years singer from South Shields Joe (Joseph) McElderry as one of her three to compete with the other judges in the live audience participation competitions over the next three months. To reach this points he participated in the long selection process earlier in the year. Almost before one series ends people are invited to apply to attend auditions for the next series. The applications are processed by the large programme team and no doubt music agents throughout the land are seeking auditions for their hopefuls who are yet to be given recording contracts and these include the miner army of entertainers who are booked into clubs and pubs, or hired from weddings and other private parties. It is unlikely that they will be asked to undergo the process endured by everyone else. The great public of hopefuls are auditioned twice before they are get to perform, before the great four and this year there was the twist of performing before an audience of four thousand given the task of putting through 200 into the second phase of the competition. Over one week in London the 200 were reduced first to 100, then to 50 an then to 24.
The twenty four then get a mini trip to somewhere exotic, Dubai, California, Lake Como and Marrakesh in Morocco. Here each group of six are given a taste of the high life before a further performance , in theory to persuade the judge. The emotions of everyone are real enough knowing that they have a fifty fifty chance of achieving national recognition and then a 12 to 1 chance of reaching the very big time, at least for a few months with live shows around the country, a Christmas number one and a Long Playing record and a national tour. Only Will Young has stayed the course and lasted since winning Pop Idol although some have fashioned professional careers, albeit for a time. The selection of final 12 took place up to three months ago in order that the they can prepare songs for the live performances and those selected and their families have to keep quiet until the final twelve decision programme is shown as it was on Sunday. Even then publicity is strictly controlled and it is interested that only ITV regional News feature Joe, his school and pupils and not his home and the programmes called upon everyone in the region to vote for him. The BBC made no report. Joe who was South Tyneside’s Young Performer of the Year in 2008 is only quoted 12/1 by the bookies which is the greatest odds you can have of course. The Local Paper has already printed posters and Foreign Secretary Local Member of Parliament David Miliband expressed enthusiasm saying he had written to wish Joe well a couple fo weeks ago which suggests the publicity at this stage is being orchestrated. Wikipedia has an excellent coloured chart covering he 12 and the Ten week double shows with the singing on the Saturday and the results show on the Sunday with the winner of last year Amanda Burke and Robbie Williams appearing next Sunday and Susan Boyle later.
On the whole I supported the decision of the judges with the exception of one rejected by Simon Cowell. Of the 24 three had appeared in bands before, two had auditioned before and he appeared in Britain’s Got Talent, thus reinforcing the view that the average applicant is wasting their time. Adverse publicity probably resulted in in one or two not being chosen although did select a group of four girls who have all worked as strippers. He also selected to obnoxious twin seventeen years although this is clearly part of their act because they look good and are twins although Simon had hated them from the outset. It is also evident that in addition to looking for someone to win the contest attention is given to geography, to race and hard luck stories, with a recent death of partner or parent helpful, genuinely overcome poor health, minor delinquency and so on as well as having performing charisma.
Waking the dead has finished but the Fixer continues with most challenging moral question asking episode todate. The unit is asked to take out an assassin who has entered the country to kill the child heir to a fortune. The unit is approached by a Greek man whose business appears to have brought him to the attention of Unit and the government authorities and who reveals that the assassin is his brother. The assassin has been hired by the brother in law of the child’s mother who is killed while protecting her child as her protector is knocked out after the assassin escaped the two other members of the unit who were meant to stop and kill him beforehand. The child is taken to be looked after by the girl friend of the junior member of the team who lives in a flat on a housing estate traditionally used by the underclass. The flat is shared with the unit’s chief assassin. The unit pretend to have moved the child as bait to the home of the entrepreneur who asked them to intervene, and indeed there a confrontation between assassins which leads one breaking the neck of the other in a manner which caused me concern because it provided a dangerous demonstration to disturbed and psychopathic individuals.
While this is happening Tanya Outhwaite who is protecting the child and carer at the flat is persuaded to leave for a talk with the dodgy M5 administrator who wants to take over the unit. That she left her post in this way would led to summarily dismissal in most circumstances but I suppose Government arms length assassins are the exception. She has been persuaded away by the ambitious British homeland security official with a proposition to become his eyes and ears which as anticipated she rejects but her absence enables an operative for the official to break into the flat to plant a listening devices. However on encountering the girlfriend he kills her as humanely as possible on one for the most moving victim hopeless appeals moments ever seen on TV, only a short while after the girl has told the boyfriend that she wants the relationship to be become as serious as he has wanted, Understandably the young man is devastated when he finds the girl killed and there is a moving scene in which they secretly bury the girl in a closed cemetery. The chief assassin feeling the grief of his friend and having already encountered the treachery of the official sets out to kill him. However he is warned off by the Unit chief explaining that he has to take account of the bigger picture and that he will use what has happened to neutralise the official once and for all. However this is not good enough for the chief assassin who sets off on his mission. Tanya warns her boss and the grieving young man also pleads with his friend not to pursue this course. The head of the unit gives the instruction for someone else to officially stop his senior and most effective worker.
The audience hopes the assassin will succeed and the official is executed and that he will get away with a personal vendetta and form of justice but thinking people will appreciate that whatever aught to be the responsibility of those who work for national security on behalf of the people is the national security of the state. Individuals including bystanders will get hurt, some fatally. This in in the nature of government. It is also a reminder of the wisdom taught on the International Management course which I attended two decades ago. It is important to have at ones behest a group for the most creative and risk taking of individuals as from these will come the most commercially successful ventures. However when they foul up either in their professional activities or personal life it is essential to have the means of ensuring that they quickly disappear from the organisation and that all reference to their existence and ones involvement is eradicated with them. Such is life.
I do not remember seeing the film, the 1960 Richard Burton film The Bramble Bush before although I recognised a young Angie Dickenson as the of his school college friend who has Parkinson disease. The information about the illness of his friend who has qualified as a doctor is the only thing which persuades him back to the community of his childhood. The friend knows he is going die and wants Richard to look after his wife when he is gone. When the pain of the illness becomes too great he also pleads to be helped to die something which Richard tells a senior colleague. Richard resists a relationship with the wife especially when he learns that she has been having a physical relationship with a local law officer with ambitions of elected the District Attorney, The a nurse discovers that the man has been assisted to his death she blows the whistle and Richard is arrested and tried and found not built of murder by a jury of local people with a high regard for him. Beneath this simple plot there are two stories which gives the film its above average quality. When Richard was twelve years old he discovered his mother naked in bed with the father of his friend, a man who has become the town drunk. In a moving and believable disclosure Richard admits to Angie they he told his father who had them committed suicide jumping off a cliff above where Richard had run away to. While superficially he blames the man in bed with his mother, he blames himself for the death of his father. The second story is the development fo teh relationship between Richard and Angie in which they eventually fall in love and she becomes pregnant, but the death and the trial means that they do not feel it is right to be together at least for the foreseeable future. It has taken fifty years for the British Prosecutor to set down in the form of a consultation document the approach his office takes when confronted with the evidence that a death may have been assisted, What was made clear is that there will be a full investigation possible one which could lead to a criminal prosecution but if there was clear evidence that the deceased had requested help where death was the only outcome then there would be no prosecution
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