Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Monday, August 27, 2007
Fires still burning
Ash is still raining down from Euboea onto our balcony.
The country is waking up to the realisation that the state cannot do anything about the fires, whereas perhaps the right realisation should be that we are very small opposite nature and of course we cannot do so much when she is putting on her red and orange ball-gown. But then, we 21st century humans are so quick to forget how small we are in front of nature.
Pity.
The country is waking up to the realisation that the state cannot do anything about the fires, whereas perhaps the right realisation should be that we are very small opposite nature and of course we cannot do so much when she is putting on her red and orange ball-gown. But then, we 21st century humans are so quick to forget how small we are in front of nature.
Pity.
Sunday, August 26, 2007
It's on f*ing fire!!
So while most of the southern part of the country is burning on TV I have my sister, trapped for two days by the fires and my mother now told to abandon the village both running loose around the Peloponnese and no-one knows what the hell is going on.
White smoke means no fire, black smoke means there is burning. Apparently.
For two days we have had ash raining down on our balcony in Athens. The sun shines a different colour depending on how fine the smoke particles are as it passes through. It would be interesting to sit and observe this if one could separate the cause from the phenomenon in one's mind.
So many of these places I have walked through their forests in the past. Here is not the place and now is not the time to talk about proper forest management.
White smoke means no fire, black smoke means there is burning. Apparently.
For two days we have had ash raining down on our balcony in Athens. The sun shines a different colour depending on how fine the smoke particles are as it passes through. It would be interesting to sit and observe this if one could separate the cause from the phenomenon in one's mind.
So many of these places I have walked through their forests in the past. Here is not the place and now is not the time to talk about proper forest management.
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Saturday, August 11, 2007
Monday, July 30, 2007
Annoyed - forgetful - rushed
yeah so in the four plus years I have been travelling with it, why now, in the middle of the scorchingest summer do I have to leave my autoject in Athens? Arsecandles!
Monday, July 23, 2007
Sunday, July 15, 2007
Travelling - and otherwise very busy
Iznik - Nicaea
Izmir - Smyrna
Afyon Karahisar
Will try very hard to get all these described properly and filled out with pics as well...
Friday, June 29, 2007
Burning pines
So
Woke up to the smell of burning pines in the morning and an unnatural light glowing over Athens as the sunlight filtered through layers of different sized ashes held in suspension in the air.
Snowfall-like the ash was being wafted on the same breeze which further to the west was fanning the flames and sending the ash coming our way.
We cannot see the damage, the smoke is too thick to see the mountain.
Woke up to the smell of burning pines in the morning and an unnatural light glowing over Athens as the sunlight filtered through layers of different sized ashes held in suspension in the air.
Snowfall-like the ash was being wafted on the same breeze which further to the west was fanning the flames and sending the ash coming our way.
We cannot see the damage, the smoke is too thick to see the mountain.
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Forest fire season is open
Mount Parnitha, the Parnes of aniquity, burns, spewing smoke over Athens. Hope the red deer get out alive.
Monday, June 25, 2007
In Anatolia
Been a little lost in Anatolia - promise to get arse into gear to write some stuff and maybe show some pics. Have this shish until then.
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
16,000 hours
I have a little add-on for Firefox which tells me how I am doing on the smober front. Well, it seems that I have not smoked for 16,000 hours. This is a saving of 1,800 euro and represents 13,333 cigarettes not smoked since that morning in August 2005.
Ah, those fond memories...
Ah, those fond memories...
Thursday, June 07, 2007
Resistance to change is all about control
So when I went for my quarterly trip down to the nice people at Schering who give me my injectables, it was all change. None of the old staff were there and for some reason everything was now branded Bayer - yep the aspirin people have bought out the interferon people. Big deal - as long as the stuff is still produced and dished out as before.
And here start the problems.
There is too much different about the whole system - different needle widths, syringe widths, different amount of powder and juice, different use of the mechanical autoject thing.
The injection itself seems to take a much longer time, meaning motionless hands for longer, there are more windows to watch from, which is just horrible if you think about it. I hate watching the plunger through the window.
And size - everything is so much bigger and unwieldier for traveling with. Yukky yuk yuk is basically what I have to say about the new set-up - albeit before using it for the first time. Maybe I will change my mind afterwards.
Just feeling a little down in the dumps because it seems to have added a little more complexity to that side of my life and I don't like it because I had no say in it.
--mopes--
And here start the problems.
There is too much different about the whole system - different needle widths, syringe widths, different amount of powder and juice, different use of the mechanical autoject thing.
The injection itself seems to take a much longer time, meaning motionless hands for longer, there are more windows to watch from, which is just horrible if you think about it. I hate watching the plunger through the window.
And size - everything is so much bigger and unwieldier for traveling with. Yukky yuk yuk is basically what I have to say about the new set-up - albeit before using it for the first time. Maybe I will change my mind afterwards.
Just feeling a little down in the dumps because it seems to have added a little more complexity to that side of my life and I don't like it because I had no say in it.
--mopes--
Funky video explains all
Well, I can't find a copy of it and I did search for a good 90 seconds or more on you tube, so sorry - you will not be seeing the video that made me 'click' in two different ways.
Background - hmm. Well on Sunday we went down to the SEF - the peace and friendship stadium, which was housing a medical exhibition for the lay person. Bunch of bollocks, no really it was crap firms selling para-medical trivialities like battery powered vibrating massage toys and orthopaedic chairs and the like. At the same time, there are various talks open to the public about a variety of issues.
So, there we were, with our brave faces on, going to a talk all about the monoclonal antibody whatsit - to learn about the newly approved dog's-bollocks of MS medication. It was with some trepidation that I went - yes, I wanted to learn more about this thing and of course I did not realise from the advertising leaflets that its the drug that had its clinical trials suspended in the states because of people dying, but which was rebranded and re released because one in a thousand rare encephalopathy cases and some deaths are not to be put in the way of a multibillion (billions and billions) dollar industry. There was also a talk about fatigue which is more what drew me, and more about that later.
Brave faces - yes, so there we were. I was wearing mine because I was wary of being confronted by a hall full of wheelchair bound, walking stick wielding people and having the little voice in the back of my head telling me, "you see that, that's you that is, in a few years". So it was my first time in front of a bunch of people having the same dx. All I will say about that is that I rather hope that those with the canes and the wheels are more likely to come to these meetings thus skewing the statistics slightly.
Anyway - the lady doctor gets up and does a very rushed rendition of a bunch of powerpoint slides she did not prepare herself. One of these slides had a video which helped me understand for the first time one of the mechanisms of how the MS works.
The video shows this big spikey white guy zooming around in the blood and then squeezing itself out of the blood vessel (crossing the blood brain barrier) and grappling onto the myelin of a brain cell which it then goes on to destroy. So now I understand the whole blood brain barrier white blood cell whatsit alittle more visually than before.
And the lady doctor then went on to talk about the new wonder drug and what it does - and then came the second realisation of the day - the drugs are fighting the "how" of the problem. Tysabri (and as far as I know all the interferons) stop the spikey white guys from crossing the blood brain barrier. That's what they do (and a little bit more, but essentially this is it). First off, I am appalled that we are dealing with the "how" and not the "why" dammit. I am a "why" sort of guy and I'm fucked if I'm going to sit back and expend energy on building dykes rather than stopping the flood waters from rising in the first place.
The talk by the lady doctor was heavily into selling Tysabri, and spent a lot of time talking about the encaphalopathies which were caused during the clinical testing, but she somehow neglected to say that death resulted during the clinical tests in the states. A heck of a lot of slides all about the encephalopathies
Did I mention that the whole thing is sponsored by Genesis? Ah, no.
If I had remembered this myself, I would have been expecting the shameless plug for the sponsor's anti fatigue drug which took up most of the talk on the fatigue subject. I was not a happy camper. I don't want to hear about drugs, to treat syptoms I want to hear about what you are doing to combat the cause.
Anyway - that was a semi-wasted morning which could not be redeemed not even by the amusement afforded by watching the people turning up after our talks had overrun for TV sex-doc Askitis' talk on erectile dysfunction. Oh and by learning that the local office of the MS Society has been overrun by representatives of pharmaceutical companies and big industry and they are using it to their own aims while the patients go unheeded. That wasn't good news. The good news was in fact that a new society has been launched only for those with a diagnosis, to ensure that that does not happen again. It looks like some disgruntled patients have run off with the mailing lists and are regrouping elsewhere.
The day was properly rescued by my first real visit to the NAM since before the quake, and that needs its own post later.
Background - hmm. Well on Sunday we went down to the SEF - the peace and friendship stadium, which was housing a medical exhibition for the lay person. Bunch of bollocks, no really it was crap firms selling para-medical trivialities like battery powered vibrating massage toys and orthopaedic chairs and the like. At the same time, there are various talks open to the public about a variety of issues.
So, there we were, with our brave faces on, going to a talk all about the monoclonal antibody whatsit - to learn about the newly approved dog's-bollocks of MS medication. It was with some trepidation that I went - yes, I wanted to learn more about this thing and of course I did not realise from the advertising leaflets that its the drug that had its clinical trials suspended in the states because of people dying, but which was rebranded and re released because one in a thousand rare encephalopathy cases and some deaths are not to be put in the way of a multibillion (billions and billions) dollar industry. There was also a talk about fatigue which is more what drew me, and more about that later.
Brave faces - yes, so there we were. I was wearing mine because I was wary of being confronted by a hall full of wheelchair bound, walking stick wielding people and having the little voice in the back of my head telling me, "you see that, that's you that is, in a few years". So it was my first time in front of a bunch of people having the same dx. All I will say about that is that I rather hope that those with the canes and the wheels are more likely to come to these meetings thus skewing the statistics slightly.
Anyway - the lady doctor gets up and does a very rushed rendition of a bunch of powerpoint slides she did not prepare herself. One of these slides had a video which helped me understand for the first time one of the mechanisms of how the MS works.
The video shows this big spikey white guy zooming around in the blood and then squeezing itself out of the blood vessel (crossing the blood brain barrier) and grappling onto the myelin of a brain cell which it then goes on to destroy. So now I understand the whole blood brain barrier white blood cell whatsit alittle more visually than before.
And the lady doctor then went on to talk about the new wonder drug and what it does - and then came the second realisation of the day - the drugs are fighting the "how" of the problem. Tysabri (and as far as I know all the interferons) stop the spikey white guys from crossing the blood brain barrier. That's what they do (and a little bit more, but essentially this is it). First off, I am appalled that we are dealing with the "how" and not the "why" dammit. I am a "why" sort of guy and I'm fucked if I'm going to sit back and expend energy on building dykes rather than stopping the flood waters from rising in the first place.
The talk by the lady doctor was heavily into selling Tysabri, and spent a lot of time talking about the encaphalopathies which were caused during the clinical testing, but she somehow neglected to say that death resulted during the clinical tests in the states. A heck of a lot of slides all about the encephalopathies
Did I mention that the whole thing is sponsored by Genesis? Ah, no.
If I had remembered this myself, I would have been expecting the shameless plug for the sponsor's anti fatigue drug which took up most of the talk on the fatigue subject. I was not a happy camper. I don't want to hear about drugs, to treat syptoms I want to hear about what you are doing to combat the cause.
Anyway - that was a semi-wasted morning which could not be redeemed not even by the amusement afforded by watching the people turning up after our talks had overrun for TV sex-doc Askitis' talk on erectile dysfunction. Oh and by learning that the local office of the MS Society has been overrun by representatives of pharmaceutical companies and big industry and they are using it to their own aims while the patients go unheeded. That wasn't good news. The good news was in fact that a new society has been launched only for those with a diagnosis, to ensure that that does not happen again. It looks like some disgruntled patients have run off with the mailing lists and are regrouping elsewhere.
The day was properly rescued by my first real visit to the NAM since before the quake, and that needs its own post later.
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Rain not stopped play
So the rain rained and the thunder thundered, but everything still went according to plan. Almost. The one day of good weather meant that we did not do Polydrosso on the Sunday, but did exams instead.
Anyway - here is us in the rain:
More to follow
Anyway - here is us in the rain:
More to follow
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Rain rain, go away...
Errm - the long weekend is going to be really rather interesting if this does not stop soon.
Thursday, May 03, 2007
Mayday! Mayday!
So, the practice of leaving the city for the countryside in order to catch "May" probably has its roots in pre christian times and is probably independent of the calendar itself.
We left Athens on Tuesday morning with a hamper full of goodies lovingly and painstakingly prepared by K during the afternoon and evening of the 30th of April. The plan was to go and visit a sinkhole at Skourta in Boetia, survey it and assist Komni dive the sump at the end of it.
The weather was not so good, cloudy and drizzly. On reaching the sinkhole, we saw that water was running into it, making it potentially dangerous to enter, and certainly dangerous to attempt a dive.
We re-routed the party from the plain of Skourta back onto Mount Parnes and headed for the fort of Phyle. Here we were met with a rather disconcerting spectacle: close to a hundred day trippers each with a portable barbecue and popular music of the most degenerate popular nature blaring from the car radios. We walked up to the fortifications, past one family group which was preparing to barbecue what looked suspiciously like genuine cantral asian shashlik and sat around admiring the view of Athens from the fort. Bored, and having sated our mayday induced urge to gather flowers and weave them into garlands, we split up, some going back home, others for rock climbing and us, with hamper safely in the boot, heading off to make a quick tour of the castles of the Attiko-boetian borderland.
Our tour was not as successful as we may have liked and our sprits were a touch dampened by the lack of sunshine. We drove up some exciting dirt tracks following ministry signposts to castles and forts on the way to the tower at Oinoe, and from there we went on to what was once called the castle of the Gypsies - Gyftokastro, but unsurprisingly this name is being used less and less in favour of the fort's ancient name - Eleutheriai.
This is a nice little fort situated in a very commanding position on top of one of the few roads linking Thebes to Athens, and it is in very good condition.
Google Earth shows it very nicely:
We walked around here for a while and took our hamper to Erythrai. Not finding the fort here (note to MiniCult - what about a signpost guys?), we went on to Plataea, saw the walls of the city, were unimpressed and set off for Kithairon with our hamper, spending about 45minutes trying to squeeze our way through the 4x4 infested streets of Villia.
And there on Kithairon, the scene of Oidipous'exposure, and Aktaions and dismemberment, but also (more happily) the scene of one of our first trips out of Athens with K (before we started going out), and with a rather cold wind blowing, we enjoyed our picnic at 1080m altitude.
Photos and possibly more videos as and when they are processed.
We left Athens on Tuesday morning with a hamper full of goodies lovingly and painstakingly prepared by K during the afternoon and evening of the 30th of April. The plan was to go and visit a sinkhole at Skourta in Boetia, survey it and assist Komni dive the sump at the end of it.
The weather was not so good, cloudy and drizzly. On reaching the sinkhole, we saw that water was running into it, making it potentially dangerous to enter, and certainly dangerous to attempt a dive.
We re-routed the party from the plain of Skourta back onto Mount Parnes and headed for the fort of Phyle. Here we were met with a rather disconcerting spectacle: close to a hundred day trippers each with a portable barbecue and popular music of the most degenerate popular nature blaring from the car radios. We walked up to the fortifications, past one family group which was preparing to barbecue what looked suspiciously like genuine cantral asian shashlik and sat around admiring the view of Athens from the fort. Bored, and having sated our mayday induced urge to gather flowers and weave them into garlands, we split up, some going back home, others for rock climbing and us, with hamper safely in the boot, heading off to make a quick tour of the castles of the Attiko-boetian borderland.
Our tour was not as successful as we may have liked and our sprits were a touch dampened by the lack of sunshine. We drove up some exciting dirt tracks following ministry signposts to castles and forts on the way to the tower at Oinoe, and from there we went on to what was once called the castle of the Gypsies - Gyftokastro, but unsurprisingly this name is being used less and less in favour of the fort's ancient name - Eleutheriai.
This is a nice little fort situated in a very commanding position on top of one of the few roads linking Thebes to Athens, and it is in very good condition.
Google Earth shows it very nicely:
We walked around here for a while and took our hamper to Erythrai. Not finding the fort here (note to MiniCult - what about a signpost guys?), we went on to Plataea, saw the walls of the city, were unimpressed and set off for Kithairon with our hamper, spending about 45minutes trying to squeeze our way through the 4x4 infested streets of Villia. And there on Kithairon, the scene of Oidipous'exposure, and Aktaions and dismemberment, but also (more happily) the scene of one of our first trips out of Athens with K (before we started going out), and with a rather cold wind blowing, we enjoyed our picnic at 1080m altitude.
Photos and possibly more videos as and when they are processed.
Monday, April 23, 2007
St. George at the Byzantine Museum
The 23rd of April is not always St. George's day. Oh no. The feast is such a big one, probably the biggest of those not immediately connected with Christ or the BVM. For this reason, if the 23rd of April falls in lent (and it does so more often than not), then the feast of St. George is celebrated on Easter Monday. This is because Lent is a time of solemnity and whatnot and we can't go feasting and celebrating in the middle of lent. So, this year, St. George's day falls on the 23rd as it should. St. George is called the tropaiophoros, the bringer of triumph and is one of the earliest saints to be revered by the church. The whole story with the dragon comes from the levant (lebanon alone has a handful of locations with claims to be the spot where the dragon had been killed. The English crusaders (more about them some other day) saw the cult of the warrior saints (George and the many other literal soldiers of christ) and took his cult back to the British Isles with them. Together with the cult, they took back the red on white cross, known as St. George's cross. It is currently also displayed on the flag of Georgia.
Anyway, back to our picture of the day: the picture shows a piece of cloth with woven design measuring about 20 by 20cm (about 8x8 in inches). The design depicts a mounted saint dispatching a dragon - the chances are that it is St. George, although St. Demetrios is infrequently depicted in a very similar way. It's not clear whether there would have been space in the top right corner for St. George's little helper and the princess who gets saved. Both are iconographically late and are probably not there.
Last for today - the cloth is from the Egyptian collection at the BXM, hence we have it at all. The BXM's egyptian collection has a great number of both everyday items and ceremonial items of normally perishable material which has been saved thanks to the arid climate of the egyptian desert. That is why we have this cloth and quite a few other things, some of which may be featured in future pics of the day.
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Byzantine and Christian Museum - pic of the day 2
Today's picture is from the Byzantine and Christian museum in Athens, from the section of the museum dealing with late antiquity when there were many changes being made to old temples to convert them to christian use. I am not sure if the specific capital is from the parthenon, the acropolis in general or what, but it is in that corner of the museum (good, this, ennit?)What have we got here? well, it is a marble capital with what seem to be crowned lambs sticking out at the corners. Things to look out for are the deep drilled holes in the lower half of the capital, which are trying to go for the so called marble lace effect (as employed to good effect in the 6th century basilicas of Constantinople and Ravenna and also in Egypt of the same time).
This is one of the more florid and over-worked capitals I am familiar with, hence its notability and inclusion here. The lamb theme is very popular in both mosaic work and plastic work for a few centuries, appearing both in the old (Theodosian) hagia sofia friezes from the 5th century and in the mosaics at St. Apollonaris in Classe from the sixth century.
Do I need to go into the why the lamb is significant in early christian art? What about the problems over the depiction of christ in human form to the extent that this goes against the graven images commandment? Maybe some other time.
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