Berlin isn’t the typical place to expect Karneval/Carnival/Fasching as it is quite a Catholic tradition in Germany and well, Berlin isn’t very Catholic. With the influx of people from the western and southern states, the Karneval groups in Berlin have been reinforced and held their parade today in City-West. Weather was fab, and what’s not to love about a parade that throws tonnes of sweets into the crowds….apart from being hit by lollipops that is.
The lovely little polar bear in Berlin has his own video-podcast. It’s in German but he is cute in any language
Video #1 Eisbärbaby im Berliner Zoo
Video #2 Neues aus dem Zoo
Video #3 “Knutteliger” Eisbär Knut
Video #4 Filmstar Knut
Lastest - Streamed Wie geht es Eisbärbaby Knut?
and to make it a little easier - Video #4 on youtube:
Okay, got your attention?
I had the pleasure of seeing Jennifer Lopez and Antonio Banderas on the red carpet at the premiere of ‘Bordertown’ during the Berlinale (Berlin Film Festival). We were quite well positioned - right beside where the cars stop and let the stars out and JLo even came over to us which send the crowd into hysterics.
I haven’t seen the film itself and by the sounds of it, I might never:
“Jennifer Lopez lost in ludicrous “Bordertown”" - Reuters
As for the Stadtautobahn, well I drove on the A100 briefly on Wednesday and several times today to get used to getting on and off. Sounds easy, but being in Berlin adds a few complications like: 2 lanes of traffic on the slip roads, tunnels and unlike normal motorways, there often isn’t space to indicate exits at 300m, 200m & 100m so you have to be a lot more aware. It’s like M50 for Berlin and one of the busiest roads in all of Germany. All that was in the Smart ForFour:
Now the car is a bit bigger but it seemed to get to 50km/h a lot faster than the Audi A3. Turns out the 1.5L diesel has an engine based on the 4-cylinder Mercedes A-Class but with 3 cylinders. Still don’t like the sound of diesel cars though…
Speaking of the A3, here it is in reality
and in the end I took a couple of snaps at the Berlinale too but only with a camera phone.
For everyone in Limerick:
The Limerick Blogger has just posted some previews of “The Shams” on RLO - some sketches with jokes very much geared at a Limerick audience.
Shams! downloads, at five finger discount
All the tracks can be downloaded from RLO itself here (scroll down):
SHAMS! FREE CD - CLICK HERE
Being over-PC pisses me off sometimes. Which is why I found it amusing to hear this:
UK: gay inns protest anti-bias law
For finding images in the public domain - yotophoto.com i.e. ones that you can reuse with no/some restrictions
I always find this useful sooner or later: an IBAN calculator for AIB and Bank of Ireland accounts
What is the IBAN number of my Irish account?
(btw, BOI tried to close it down as documented by The Register here)
Ze Frank on procrastination:
I passed the german theory test with 0 mistakes! The only question that made me wonder was this sign:
What should you prepare yourself for?
a) with cattle on the road
b) with a very dirty road surface
c) with a wild animal crossing (Wildwechsel) - deer & wild pigs etc
The correct answer is a & b and there is a special sign for the crossings mentioned in c:
Turns out that they use the same crossing points for decades.
This one sparked my interest too:
Indicating not only the danger of snow and ice but also wintersports ON the road…
And finally a couple for you to wonder about
Cullen: he stated that Irish Citizens for Trustworthy Evoting or the Irish Computer Society are ‘not experts in this field’, ‘have no expertise or international accreditation’, and best of all they are apparently ‘linked to the anti-globalisation movement’ or the ‘reds under the bed’!
AND:”If Fine Gael bases its policies on such people, it is no wonder it is in decline.”
From taint.org: Justin Mason’s Weblog (2004)
btw Powervote Ireland Ltd, the company that won the contract that won the contract has gone into voluntary liquidation. The Department of the Environment has insisted the liquidation would not affect its efforts to get the e-voting machines into use in the State. In fairness, there is another company Powervote Services Ltd that should take over contractual obligations….could be just squeezing money out in a tax-efficient manner.
The New York Times also reports how Florida is going back from touch-screens to paper+optical scanners because of all the problems. Click Here
A Dutch group showed how you can eavesdrop on the machines and see how people voted - i.e. no longer a secret ballot and the Dutch government ordered 35 cities including Amsterdam to go back to pen and paper
So now Bertie - do you still believe that we are a “laughing stock with our stupid old pencils” (17th Oct. 2006)
47,353 Fans and I were at the Olympiastadion in Berlin to see Hertha BSC beat Hamburg SV 2:1.
On the way in there were many jibes - Hamburg has never been relegated in the Bundesliga but it is at the bottom of the table and it is looking inevitable. “Zweite Liga - Hamburg ist dabei, Hamburg ist dabei” went the chant.
Hamburg played stronger in the first half and even though Hertha got a penalty after 8 minutes, Pantelic missed and HSV got a goal in the 33rd minute. The second half was better for Hertha but time was ticking away. Finally, Arnie Friedrich got a goal in the 78th minute to equalise. Hertha brought on Mineiro, their new Brazilian defensive midfielder. Incredibly, in the 2nd (and last) minute of extra time, he fired the ball into the back of the net from 20 meters.
Atmosphere was quite good - the Hertha Fans love the Ostkurve and when they get going it is a sight to behold. I got a better view of the Hamburg fans too as the were at our end but on the other side of the Marathontor (the big gap).
I was glad to hear that the number pf people waiting on trolleys in A&E was dropping…till I figured out why today
Surguries are being cancelled to relieve the pressure on A&E AND surguries are being cancelled because of a lack of intenisve care beds while some people have to make do with high-dependency beds even though they should be in ICU. St. James’ alone cancelled 20 surgeries due to this recently.
The Taoiseach’s response:
The second point Deputy Kenny made was that 40,000 operations were cancelled. I do not think any operations were cancelled, although some were postponed.
Postponement, cancellation, delays - call it what you like, this is not acceptable and people are really suffering.
I’M GOING TO DIE BECAUSE OF HOSPITAL WAITING LISTS
On Today’s Liveline (9th January 2007) programme, a young woman called Rosie spoke about her diagnosis of terminal bowel cancer — and the delay she has experienced in getting the proper treatment. She had sent in an e-mail to the programme, the following is the full text.
I’m going to die because of hospital waiting lists
Dear Joe,
Today I had my 12th session of chemo. I got to talking to the partner of a man who was also getting chemo. She told me that when her partner’s GP requested a colonoscopy for him he was put on the waiting list. She then phoned the hospital and told them he had private health insurance and he was seen three days later. He had bowel cancer that was advanced, but had not broken through the bowel wall and spread to other organs. She said the tumour was the size of a fist and what made him go to the doctor (apart from her nagging) was he started to lose weight rapidly. Thank goodness they got it in time and he’s going to recover.
I then came home, flicked on the tv and got into bed. The first ad on the tv was from the government telling people that bowel cancer can kill, but not if caught in time. If Bertie Ahern or Mary Harney or Michael McDowell were within reach I would have killed them. Literally. I’m not joking.
I don’t have private health insurance. It’s a long story, so I’ll start at the beginning.
I’ve suffered from digestive complaints for years. It started out with being unable to eat in the mornings or when my stomach felt tense. I’d feel too queasy. Then I got heartburn after just about everything I ate. I lived on Rennies. Then, in 2005, I got a lot of diahrea and after a few months it became constant and blood accompanied some of my bowel movements. I went to my GP clinic in the Summer of 2005. Probably about 2 months after the blood started appearing. I look back now and feel stupid for delaying for 2 months, but I wasn’t sure if the blood was caused by piles, which my late mother suffered from. I was 39 years old and had read in books and heard a doctor say on tv that bowel cancer doesn’t affect people under 50. Anyway, my normal GP was on holiday, but I saw his colleague, and she immediately sent a letter to the local hospital requesting a sonogram and a colonoscopy. Within weeks I was called for a sonogram and was diagnosed with a gallstones. That explained the queasiness and the heartburn. I expected to soon be called for the colonoscopy. I waited through the autumn, then through the start of winter. No word on the colonoscopy and no word on when my gall bladder would be removed.
In November I started to get serious lower abdominal pain after eating. I phoned the consultants secretary and asked if I was on the waiting list. She assured me I was and would be called soon. In December I started to rapidly lose weight. This definitely wasn’t like me! I love my food, Joe. I phoned the hospital again after Christmas. Again I was told that I was still on the list and would definitely be called soon. (I later found out that that consultant had retired and they had just hired a new one). Joe, from November to the end of February I was in agony. Apart from the pain and diahrea I was tired all the time. I’d literally got out of bed to go to work at 4.30 in the afternoon. Came home around 10.30pm, ate my dinner (I couldn’t eat before work because it’d make me too sick to do my job), tidied the kitchen and went to bed again. I was miserable.
Finally, on February 28, 2006, four days after I turned 40, I was called for a colonoscopy.
I woke up in the middle of the procedure and saw on a large screen, them probing a blob on my colon. They were taking a biopsy. But I didn’t have to wait for the results. I knew what I had. Soon after I met my wonderful consultant, Dr George Nassim. What a gem he is. Friendly, compassionate and funny on top of being a great surgeon. I felt like I was in good hands. I didn’t panic for more than a few hours after I was told that I had cancer. They can do loads of things to save cancer patients these days. I was young and strong. I’d been a vegetarian since I was 16. I ate mostly healthy foods, although eating at night was a serious no no when it came to my weight. I went for walks a few times a week. I felt I could beat this.
I was booked in for surgery to remove the tumour. I was given a stoma, which means I’ll have to poop in a bag for the rest of my life. I found that really difficult to handle. More difficult than the cancer sometimes. I was in St Lukes hospital for over 50 days last year. (I had to have a second surgery due to complications) Recovery was hard, but I did it. I shared a room with two lovely women who also had cancer. They have since died. In another ward I was in I was next to another woman who had cancer. She died too. The staff at St Lukes in Kilkenny are the most kind, hardworking people I’ve ever met. In March, in between surgeries, I was sent to the Mater in Dublin and had a porto-cath put in for putting the chemo through, and a PET Scan to see if the cancer had spread. If it hadn’t, I’d live. If it had spread to other organs, I’d die. It had spread to my lungs.
I felt bad enough to go to the doctor. She did what she was supposed to do. She told them I had diahrea and blood from my rectum. But what could they do? So do lots of people. Should I have skipped the list ahead of those other people with the same symptoms? I don’t think so. Should there be a list so long that it puts people at risk of dying? No. Definitely not.
I know in my heart and soul that when I started to feel really, really bad, especially in from December to February 2006, is when the cancer broke through the wall of my bowel. Of course I can’t prove it. But I know. Because it broke through the bowel I have been given 2 to 4 years from diagnosis to live. The chemo is to prolong life, not to save it. I have 3 years, tops, to go. Despite that, I’m going to try my best to make it for 5 more til my youngest turns 18. He needs me too much now. My husband has suffered right along side of me in his own way knowing that the woman he loves will be dead soon. My 18 year old daughter has been told and has gone quiet and doesn’t want to talk about it. But I know she’s scared. I haven’t told my 13 year old son yet. He’s too young to handle it. The South East Cancer Foundation in Waterford have been very helpful and will help us when the time is right to do and say the “right” things.
I don’t blame the wonderful people who work in St Lukes in Kilkenny. They work with what they are given. St. Lukes has the best A+E unit in the country. I had to use it three times in 2006 and twice with my son (nothing serious, thankfully). What did the government do? Threaten to shut it down. They also threatened to shut down the maternity unit AFTER spending millions to improve it!! That would mean Carlow women would have to travel to already overcrowded hospitals in Dublin and Kilkenny women would have to travel to Waterford, which is grand if you live in South Kilkenny. The rest could lump it and birth at the side of the road if necessary.
Twice I had to listen to two women die next to me in hospital because there’s no place for people nearing death and their loved ones to go to die and grieve in dignity.
My time in the Mater was dreadful. I was terrified I’d pick up MRSA because it was filthy. I was put on a ward with cardiac patients, mostly men, who because of their ill health were unable aim too well when they went to the toilet. Once when I used the toilet my pajama bottoms soaked up urine up to my ankles. Even though I was still sick and weak I still tried to hover over the toilet so I wouldn’t have to touch it. I wasn’t able to hover and hold up my pajama legs at the same time. I had just given my sister-in-law two sets of pj’s to take home and wash and had nothing to change into. I rinsed them out in the grimey sink and wore them damp until she returned the next day with clean ones.There was excrement stuck to the sides of the toilet for days at a time. Water flooded the shower room, soaked my clean pjs and towel that were on the floor outside the shower and ran out into the hall. After that happened the first time I learned to take a chair in to the shower room to put my stuff on. At least I knew THAT floor got water and soap put on it regularly. The man in the bed next to me, who had suffered a triple bi-pass was served up a greasy fry for tea when he had specifically ordered fish because it was healthier. On the third day he refused to eat it when they wouldn’t give him what he had ordered and went without eating on principle. I was vegetarian and so was served cheese on crackers and cheese sandwiches (fake cheese slices on white bread) for all but two meals. They brought one of the two nicer meals when I was fasting and not allowed to eat it. My suspicion is that the catering has been privatised, although I could be wrong. The staff, apart from one really nasty nurse, were lovely.
Should I blame anyone for my hard luck? I’ve thought about it over the last year and have tried to be reasonable about it. After all, I waited to get Christmas over with before I phoned the hospital for a second time asking to be seen. But today, when I heard that a very nice man who was in the same, if not worse condition, than me when he went to his GP is going to live because he had private health insurance and I’m going to die because I didn’t, I had to bite my tongue. I’m happy he’s going to live. He deserves to live. But so do I. Then I came home and watched that ad which told people to hurry up and get checked out for bowel cancer because it will save their lives, and I fucking lost it.
I’ve finally reached the angry stage, I guess. Who am I angry at? I’ll tell you, Joe. The health service has been in the hands of Fianna Fail and the PD’s for years and all they can think to do is put resources into privatisation. They don’t have the ability to change structures in the public sector that would put more resources toward patient care. But it’s not just the politicians. I’m also angry at every single voter who voted for Fianna Fail and the PDs because they thought they’d get a few more shillings in their pockets but were too greedy and stupid to realise that that money they saved in wage taxes would be made up with stealth taxes. We all knew before the last election what their health policies were and the majority of people ignored this and voted for them anyway. Maybe they thought this would never happen to them. Or maybe because so many have private health insurance they just didn’t care because they were alright, Jack.
I never dreamed I’d get cancer, let alone die from it. But I was wrong. My message to anyone with symptoms of bowel cancer is go to your GP immediately. If you, like me, don’t have health insurance, pester them until they hate you, go to your politicians and beg them to help, go to the media, get a solicitor to threaten to sue the government and the hospital if they don’t get you in soon for a colonoscopy. Otherwise, the people who love you might lose you and you’ll not get to do all the things you planned in life.
I’m writing to you because the way this country is run leads me to believe that contacting a radio show is the only way to try to change things like this. I hope that when Ms SUV and Mr Builder goes into the voting booth, they’ll think about me, my husband and especially my children. My husband is a decent man. He works full time in a good job and I worked part-time in a job I loved that helped people, but didn’t pay well. It depended on government money to help women and children in crisis, so of course couldn’t pay me well. We know what Bertie, Michael, Micheal and Mary’s priorities are.
Despite 1 1/2 incomes we couldn’t afford VHI or Bupa. But even if we could have we wouldn’t have gotten it because we believed (and still do) that all people should get good care despite their incomes. We thought jumping queues was wrong. We’re socialists…just like Bertie. Ha Ha. Now I feel like vomiting and it’s not the chemo!
From a Cancer Patient in Kilkenny.