Post Operatively...

Well, here I am - 24 hours after coming home from my second cataract surgery yesterday.  Very different experience - celebrity status amongst all the other brave souls as the single 'GA'. The petite female anaesthetist and the quirky little nurse were absolutely delightful.  The anaesthetist explained that normally people are fine with the sedative that they give you and you hardly know anything has happened :-)  Yes, I had that last time, I said, and it didn't work...  The nursing staff themselves had said 'next time, don't eat and have a general anaesthetic".  Several doses of the appropriate sedative (oral and intravenous) had been no match for my coursing adrenaline.  It reminded me of the time my daughter had needed an IVP X-ray when she was 7 years old. 'Magic cream' having been placed on the wrong arm the team then attempted to sedate her in order to inject the radioactive dye required for the kidney X-rays.  She would succumb to sedation.  Enough to knock out a 150lb man and she was still screaming and fighting - we were told to take it in turns to sit on her.  After it was over (we should never have permitted in on reflection) they said she'd had so much intravenous sedative she'd be asleep within 30 minutes.  She didn't stop running round until gone 10pm that night.  We are ladies of great adrenaline potential and a strong survival instinct in our family :-)

So, when had I last eaten or drunk?  13 hours ago.  Okay.

Subsequent to post the other week, here is the second eye appropriately robed :-)

This is one of the few moments I spent awake during the subsequent evening and after a lovely plate of macaroni cheese on toast (so comforting on the dry abused throat from the endotracheal tube). So sleepy we packed the evening in and retired at 9pm.

Anyway, back to the clinic.  Because of my recent and interesting medical history a ECG was ordered.  The screen was bleeping away in a jolly manner and the little nurse pulling all sorts of faces as she tried to print.  Eventually she tore the sheet off and screwed it up, calling for assistance.  "It looks fine on the screen" she said, "but the print-out is rubbish!"  After a few minutes an accurate trace was obtained and the nurse unscrewed the previous offering from the printer seen here:

Yes, it looks more like a polygraph or a seismograph than an ECG - happy to say my true results were normal and amazingly my pulse below 100 - a testament to the calcium channel blockers I think.  Then the blood pressure monitor and sats - the former typically stuffed up to the armpit on my short little arm with the resultant pinching leaving me cursing and my blood pressure soaring.  "If only you had a wrist one" I said - at which point she promptly put the measure on my lower arm instead!  Bliss!  I think I shall ask for that in future.  "Ah, your pulse has returned to normal", she chuckled.

Being the only GA I was left until the end of the morning and then some.  A chance for the nerves to subside and instead for Jon and I to people-watch the superbly organised chaos that was the weekend ophthalmology clinic.  For not only were there patients in for cataract surgery but also emergency and drop-in cases coming to see the sublime Dr Lobo, who sat them on a typists chair opposite his with the ophthalmology machine in-between and gave diagnoses, prescribed treatments, referred and reassured patients - even seeing people who had arrive without appointment.  And what a great man he was too - by 5pm he had not even had a break for lunch, had dealt with everyone with patience and with respect as unique individuals, even playing games with coloured lights to get a little child to look into his machine, and not once had lost his calm and patient manner.  He obviously loves his job, and so would I if I were him.  I guess in my small way I try to treat my own students with the same care and respect.

Wheeled through to the ante-room the worst thing was the insertion of the IV - but everyone was having this. Explained the scratches on my hand were from adoring kitty while they patted away painfully to 'bring up the vein'.  After it was in - nothing, until waking up in recovery.  A while dozing then back to see Jon and some cups of hospital tea and madelines before saying our goodbyes and heading home as the afternoon clinic drew to a close.

This morning we waded out through the snow to the hospital, me with two pairs of sunglasses over my patch as the light was intolerably bright.   Met up with a lady and her daughter whom we'd seen the previous day and made our way though the largely deserted hospital to the clinic where we were greeted by a room full of the one-eyed, all waiting to be called in for their patches to be removed.  When it was my turn the painful response to light was explained - a slight inflammation of the eye and a little burst blood vessel, but nothing to worry about.  All will be better within 4 weeks - well it's going to be better a lot sooner as a holiday beckons and I can't wait to see those views again.

Tonight as the night falls and the light is nearly gone I look out into the back garden with both new eyes.  Yes, it's in focus.  Try the new-new eye on it's own. Yes!  It's in focus.  I can see :-)

Brazilian Butt Lift

Okay, so I don't get enough sleep.  OH out at least two nights a week singing until late.  Up early to join the rat race round the motorway. Never get through the night without being wakened several times by my little feline poppet trying to get her 'milkies' by kneading any bit of my body available and preferably exposed with her lethal little paws... but she's so adorable what is there to do! Last night I opted to put two layers on the top half so that I could sleep through the claws, but still woke up exhausted.  Got to work at 8.30am and didn't have a moment without something to do until I left at 6.30pm.  I am looking forward to time off!

I've got a new system for dealing with that faint-from-hunger-and-tired feeling when you get in the door and there's no-one else there - I rehearse an exact sequence of movements and then work through them methodically: Keys, alarm, (stroke cats) glasses, coat, (feed cats) grill on, foil on tray, food out of fridge (stroke cats) salmon on tray, seasoning on salmon, salmon under grill, vegetables chopped and dry fried with seasoning, drink poured, tray prepared, TV on, (stroke cats) computer out, DINNER!!!  Tonight Sophie was sick on the window ledge after eating (nice retching noise from behind the curtain) - definitely hairballs again - but I managed to absorb that in the routine without getting sidetracked for too long.  Once I've eaten some energy returns and it's time to put my feet up in front of some mindless TV :-)

Boob job and Brazilian Butt Lift :-)

Tonight a nice episode of Criminal Minds followed by one of my latest 'horror shows' - Stitch Me, Lift Me Tuck Me...  This is a Harley Street Clinic with a proud specialism in providing plastic surgery for people with more money than sense.  Lots of has-been celebrity clients (as well as would-be stars) but this week the 'star' for me has been the girl having a 'Brazilian Butt Lift'.  Here is a young lady who has been depressed about her appearance for some time because she thinks her bottom should stick out more...  STICK OUT MORE!  Yes, you heard me.  For someone who all her adult life has fought against the tendency of her body to stick out in every area that compromises a smooth clothing line, the thought of having fat sucked out of your stomach and injected into your bottom to make it bigger is truly astonishing.   This painful procedure (imagine sitting down with your bottom covered in stitches) has for her been totally worth it.  Don't get me wrong - this was not a girl who had anything WRONG with her bottom - it wasn't baggy or saggy or even just plain old tired - this was a pretty young girl (a little on the chubby side) with lovely hair and skin who is only now getting herself a bikini and speaking of having the confidence to strut her stuff on some exotic foreign beach.  She just need a bigger butt - to match her bigger boobs.  Another success story for the clinic.

This Saturday I'm having possibly my first operation in the next few months (more later, don't ask) - and this is a minor one.  I'm having the lens in my right eye replaced - my second cataract surgery.  It's come up quicker than I thought and I'm glad.  Last time I left it to get really bad (getting more expensive pairs of glasses to compensate) until I could only see 4 inches in front of my face.  Not this time.  Yes I'm scared; I'm a woos and I admit it.  But I know it's never going to get any better.  I've got the hairdresser booked for 3 days later to tidy up my shaggy mop and fading tones - Jon is taking me.  Tired as I am that will really make me feel a million dollars, and all for the price of a cut and colour :-)

Laxity

Not blogged for a while - this is a busy time of year for me - but there is an issue that's been on my mind for so many years I reckon it deserves a little air time.

My knees have always played up when my weight goes up.  Now is no different.  Back to my heaviest in 40 years and any sort of stairs are awkward and painful; in the night and on getting up even walking is very painful.  Driving to work and the hour sitting in the car can leave me hobbling on arrival.  Yet I see far heavier people than myself trotting along in dainty footwear.  For me there has to be deep cushioning and arch support just to walk around on a daily basis.  The weight is one thing I have a plan to tackle - but why am I so particularly disabled by a few excess stone? Trying to walk down the stairs in the morning my legs are like an old woman with arthritis - wobbly and tender - but I know I haven't got any of the redness or swelling that would indicate arthritis.  It's just damned painful and worse with every pound of weight.  But it is the weight I'm sure - I've tried exclusion diets (did I have a wheat or gluten allergy?) and thought it was working until I acknowledged I was also losing weight as a consequence.  Gradually I have had to acknowledge that every time the weight reaches a certain mark the joint pains begin to become debilitating.

When I was an infant and started walking (late, by all accounts) I was diagnosed as flat footed, as I had a strange clumsy gait.  Special shoes and time and this sorted itself out, but if I walk too far without support when I'm heavy I still feel as if my arches are collapsing.  At my lightest (in my late 20's) I tried jogging - something I always dreamed of experiencing - but just as I managed my first mile I was hit with excruciating pain in my knees and the inability to even squat down to get into the freezer.  Couldn't push a shopping trolley or bend down, let alone run.  Any sideways pressure was really painful, so slipping in the shower - ouch.  The doctor diagnosed 'grazed patellas' and on manipulating my knees declared my ligaments were very loose - he could move my knee joints sideways more than he expected.  Basically I had hyper-extended my knees whilst running, particularly downhill, because of lax ligaments.  Prescription = rest and exercises to strengthen the ligaments that support the knee, to prevent the joint from slipping. Took about 18 months to feel better and no more jogging for me...

Twelve years ago, thereabouts, I embarrassingly came off my scooter at about 5 miles an hour on ice.  Tried to stop from hitting a wall by putting out my left leg and boot.  Should have let go of the throttle but didn't - inexperience.  Consequence = hot burning slicing feeling in my outer thigh and knee and lying part under my bike with my left knee bend round at an unnatural angle.  Whilst still partially in shock I grabbed the said leg and hauled it back straight.  Then I yelled...  My knee cap had disappeared several inches down my shin, there was a hole in my thigh which took years to finally fill in, and zero muscle tone requiring crutches and learning to walk from the buttock. More strengthening exercises and a warning not to do it again. Eventually got an MRI scan of the knee - in typical NHS fashion long after the event (had I gone straight to A&E they would have done it as a matter of course) and 'early Osgood-Schlatter Disease' was noted; inflammation of the bone and cartilage/tendon of the patella.  Over the next few years I got used to 'protecting the left' and the occasional and unpredictable collapse of the knee when stepping off a curb.

So now I start putting the pieces together.  I think I have something called 'ligamentous laxity' of the knees - and possibly other joints as well.  One of the early signs in childhood is late walking and a diagnosis of flat feet.  In actuality it is the laxity of the ligaments which causes the young arch to drop when standing - when sitting to arch will be present. The loose ligaments make it easier to injure the knee by the joint moving more than it should, such as jogging with inadequate shoes.   In my bike accident I undoubtedly nearly dislocated my knee but the laxity meant it actually stretched where it shouldn't.  Popping of the knees (I get this turning over in bed sometimes), pain on stairs (particularly going down) and feeling as if the arches are dropping.

So I have laxity of the knees. Nothing too awful, nothing really debilitating, but enough to make weight matter. And I've had a series of insults to the patella tendon which have exacerbated the problem.  Along with natural aging it means that every time I go up and down stairs I'm putting a huge pressure on unstable joints and this is worse after relaxing - so getting up in the night my ligaments are loose and the instability worse.  Putting good supportive slippers on helps to stop the arches shifting but ultimately I need to LOSE WEIGHT because, unlike the very large ladies in their stilettos with their super-stable knee joints I literally cannot support my own weight.  So watch this space...


Then of course there's the BUNIONS ;-)

Seeing the world with new eyes...

This morning I felt a bit queasy and dizzy headed.  Tried to find out about the Eye Clinic appointment this evening, but only answering machines to leave details on.  Phoned work and told them I would be in for the lecture this afternoon but not before.  Take it easy. You've still got just under half a busy term to go.

Podium in the lecture theatre was emitting an horrific grinding static; totally off putting to me and irritating as well to the students, who could hear it clearly especially with the microphone on.  In the end I gave up, switched the microphone off and moved over to the front row to continue delivery.  I could see smiles rising on the faces around - they like it when things feel more personal.  The presentation today was on Social Cognitive theory - including self-theories and how we construct both preconscious and conscious schema to represent both how we perceive the world and how we respond to what we see.

Guy on the news - Jaron Lanier - big white guy with the most massively long dreads I've ever seen.  He is one of the conceptualisers of free internet and the creator of virtual reality who thought thirty years ago that by now we would all be seeing the world through new eyes - virtual reality eyes.  If we didn't like the reality we had we could submerge ourselves in an alternative reality, constructed using computers, of course.  Now with the downturn in the economy he has started to see the world of the internet and free information he helped to create with new eyes: whilst we pay for access to the virtual world but everything we provide can be used 'free' (for marketing and targeting  there will never be any ethical brakes on the use of information. Lanier thinks we should start charging for what we GIVE, not just what we RECEIVE. Ordinary people should be paid for information - including data obtained by CCTV camera on the streets of London, information and pictures provided on Facebook and right down to twitter 'tweets'.

"Lanier argues that the early internet years have fetishised open access and knowledge-sharing in a way that has distracted people from demanding fairness and job security in an economy predicated on data flow."

 An interesting idea, but I'm sure someone somewhere would still be making their money out of all the buying and selling of little packets of information that would ensue. 

So - I arrive at the clinic and park up. The building itself is one I never knew existed.  It's got a strange little picket fence and inside is a patchwork of outdated styles tacked together in passes for rooms, with other rooms leading off where consultations appear to be made.  Just as things seem to be thinning out alarmingly the biggest, brownest, oldest looking door opens and the eye specialist calls me in.

After the left eye - now it's the turn of the right!

Long and short of it is that, as I expected, there is a cataract growing in the centre of the right eye now.  It's only small, he says, you may want to get new stronger glasses and wait for a while. No, I've had enough of that already - and it's never going to get better. I'm getting scared driving at night again because of the distortion and when I walk into a new environment (new focal depth) I'm confused and uncomfortable as I can't make the visual adjustment.  He's done the obligatory health diary and I'm relieved to see that he understands what vasospasm and variant angina is and suggests I have this eye done under a general anaesthetic. He doesn't want a patient having palpitations with anxiety... He'll even do it before we go on holiday, if I like, so that I can see the views!  Ah - but I have to go to work, I nearly say.  'We work at weekends', he tells me - op on the Saturday, check-up visit on the Sunday.  All I might miss would be one Monday lecture.  Maybe I'm worth it....

Next thing is the focal depth - 'you do know you'll have to wear glasses to read from now on'.  I explain that the left eye lens is slightly myopic - I can see to read, work the computer and see him, all with clarity.  Can I have the right eye to see distance, I ask - then I've got an eye for each?  It's what my brain is used to.  Are you right handed, he asks.  I'm left eye dominant - I know that's unusual - and right handed.  Yes, very unusual he replies.  Okay, bring your prescription with you to the pre-op - we'll match your right eye to it.  I will have one eye to see close, one eye to see distance, and both with clarity!  My brain will be in heaven! I hope we can find a weekend soon to get it done - it will be literally seeing the world with new eyes ;-)

Perspectives

All a matter of perspective.  Just watching Spiral with the extraordinary convoluted loyalties and moralities of the police and justice system. It all seems very curious to me as there seems to be a general acceptance that anything goes in order to achieve an outcome.  I ask Jon if that sort of thing ever went on when he was in the police force. He doesn't answer.  I guess they think in France that sometimes you have to fight things on the same level with people that simply don't care about the consequences.  Well there are a lot of people on Spiral who in one way or another don't seem to be concerned about the consequences. It's a matter of perspective to them.

I broke a tooth this week.  Just fell to pieces in my mouth.  Got an appointment straight away with the dentist.  Predictably he said I would need a crown, as the tooth was already well filled and the remaining outer shell had fractured.  Before you know it he's popping an injection in and drilling the remainder down to a peg.  Oh well, another £500 I wasn't expecting, I think.  He explains he will be using a Zirconia filling - it will be as strong as rock, 'well, stronger'.   I'm sent down to wait whilst the temporary filling hardens.  Returning to the chair he explains I will need my teeth cleaned before the new crown is fitted.  The lower tooth on  on other side will one day need doing as well; the fracture was caused by the pressure from the crown above and I have crowns on both sides.  Great, now my new super-hard crown will be cracking the crown above, which is of a lesser quality than the new one, of course. Yet again I'm amazed at how anxious I get about these procedures. My palpitations have only just about subsided by the time I'm ready to go.

I'm called over to the desk.  They've prepared my 'quote'.  Well, quote it says but as the treatment has already started I am hardly in a position not to pay. I look at the amount - £1210!!!  Over twice what I was expected.  In a cute little move my dentist has found an even more expensive material than the previous ceramic (which was the ultimate in it's time) and now from my perspective I will have a tooth that will most certainly outlive me, costs more than any other part of my body, will not be seen by anybody but me (and only if I choose to look) and that may cause more damage in my mouth in the long run.  Splendid. My anxiety this time (and frequently before) has clouded my ability to see how easily I'm led into more expense than I wanted simply by not stopping and asking what other options are available (and what the price will be) before putting my bum in the chair.  Looking online I find Zirconia crowns cost between £500-700.  My actual crown is costing £850; the rest is 'treatment, fitting, etc'.  If I'd gone to Budapest, I read, it might have cost me £290.  From my dentist's perspective he's made a tidy little profit which can go towards doing up his surgery... again. There goes my Summer School money and I don't even earn it until July.

I had taken my precious Mac in to the dealer to mended - the usb ports had stopped working and it needed a new motherboard (sorry, 'logic' board) - under warranty, thank goodness.  In order to sit next to Sophie  on the sofa (and with an aching mouth) I try to finish my latest batch of marking on my 15" workhorse but Office keeps crashing and the computer keeps freezing (those hold-the-button-down to restart jobbies).  You could make a cuppa and drink it every time it has to restart. Jeeeezzz.  Frustrated, I take a browse on the web for full size laptops as my poor faithful old Toshiba is actually full to the brim (literally) and the fan is charging away like a jet engine whilst I'm working.  You could still fry an egg on it after a couple of hours.

I see this amazing spec in a fully warranted reconditioned Asus machine in Argos Outlet - costing a little more than a 5th of the price of the tooth - 1TB hard drive, 6GB ram, nice blue aluminium, so not the dust magnet like my current patent black machine...  Put it that way and within a couple of days I'm typing this blog on my new machine! :-)

It's a matter of perspective, you see.  Cracking good machine and I get to play with Windows 8, which has, I find, a split personality. I can use 'new ways of working' and/or seamlessly switch to the old.  Even (as Jon points out) swapping between both with the touch of a button. For a computer junkie like me that is pure heaven.  I can wile away many happy an evening after work fiddling with this silent, non-overheating (boy, did my Toshiba get HOT), HDMI screen, 2 second 'Instant On' (the equivalent of stop-start technology) machine.  The dual-core Celeron processor means it probably isn't great for gaming but what would I want with one of those?  I write lectures, blogs and posts on Catchat, manipulate statistics, wade through electronic marking, read and respond to mail, sort photos and browse the web for information - whilst keeping precious kitties company, of course.  From my perspective it's absolutely Purrrfect.

In fact Jon likes the perspective of my new laptop so much he is now having one as well...

Causality

Causality is a big thing in statistics.  Just because x is related to y does not mean y caused x to happen.  My day started with a demonstration of causality.

Eggs.  Tired this morning; should have gone to bed before Jon got home but didn't.  Came down to a quiet house, fed the cats and went to the fridge to get some bread for toast. Lara's daBird toys are on top of the fridge - out of reach, but tantalisingly waving around as I open and shut the door.  Lara jumps up onto the counter, peering up at the precious prize.  Coffee, I need my decaff.  There's enough water for my cup in the Senseo.  I collect my mug and put the sweeteners in, press the button.  Get the butter out for the eggs.  Look at the coffee.  No foam. Odd.  Ah, I've forgotten to put a new coffee pad in the machine!  Idiot.  Take the cup over to pour down the drain.  Something is in the back of my mind.  An unpleasant scuffling sound and a plop.  Eggs.  My two yellow boxes of new Extra Large eggs are both on the floor, inverted, with yellow globes glistening and melding within the globulous transparency of raw egg white.  I have just lost potentially a dozen eggs.  The cause?  Well there is Lara, innocently standing where the boxes stood the moment before, next to the fridge.   What has happened?  Lara has tried to climb on the boxes to get to her toy; it made her higher.  Lara has knocked all my eggs onto the floor.  Of course I should have taken the cue and moved either the eggs or the toy.  So the true cause of the accident, knowing Lara's character and potential for impulsive attempts to get what she wants, was my failing to prevent it...

Have you ever tried to scoop broken eggs off a tiled floor? My first aim, after shouting at the cats, who immediately ran to help by investigating this new feature on their floor, was to rescue any intact or nearly intact eggs.  Four were suitable for storing carefully in a bowl, fractured but not smashed.  Of the remaining 8 I managed to salvage a few which could be used for scrambled egg for breakfast but every moment not spent tackling the rest resulted in the further spread of gloop which resisted my every attempt to scoop it off the floor by just glooping in another direction. Eventually I had to subdue it with a vast amount of kitchen roll before washing the area repeatedly until my shoes stopped sticking.

I was 15 minutes late leaving for work and 15 minutes late arriving.  Eggs. The rather large scrambled egg was rather nice, however.

Today I got a surprise when my ex-colleague arrived at the office to complete the clear-out of her things.  She was to have spent the term working with me on the module but having disagreed with our line manager over teaching duties accelerated her retirement and her last day is next week.  Immediately I felt myself tensing.  On the one hand it was nice to see her; on the other I found my peace shattered and today I was feeling really tired.  I realise that this term, working with new colleagues who do not need me to 'mind them' and who take some small responsibilities for aspects of administration has made this term less tiring than I expected. My colleague tells me that some of her health problems have worsened over the last few months.  "You know, don't you" she says, "it's this place!"  She goes on to declare that everyone hates it here, and that she's glad to be getting out.  "I dont hate it" I state plainly.  "I'm doing a job that I enjoy with colleagues I like and respect." I know she is convinced that workplace issues have caused her health problems, to the extend that she blames our line manager for all her problems.  This one person has caused her health to deteriorate and her stress levels to soar.  In truth I think her stress is caused not by another person but by the mismatch between her expectations and reality; the wearing down of her internal resources to cope with the demands of her job after a series of major life stressors over the last few years.  In case I'm determined not to let her attitude get me down.  She informs me she's binned all her lectures. Got rid of everything.  Anyone who takes over the course next year will have to work their own programme, despite it having been validated in it's current form.  We'll need to get together and sort out Summer School in the next few weeks, she informs me, as she will be away until just before.  She asks me to send her the materials.  She hasn't got them (despite my giving them to her every year) - she has deleted all her work.  She wants us to rewrite part of the course. I say I haven't got time to rewrite it; if she wants to change some of the material she presents, that's fine.  She wants to get rid of some of the 'serious' stuff.  She thinks we should make it more 'fun'. I point out it's a credit bearing module, so we have to keep an academic focus.  She then starts telling me that she doesn't like the material about the MBTI on some of the slides.  This was material I asked for her input on previously. I'm feeling aggravated already.  I'm trying to work.  I have a teaching observation to do in 30 minutes.  I don't want to argue about this joint collaboration but already I'm beginning to regret I agreed to do it again this year.  Maybe it's just not worth it because I really don't want all this aggravation. But I keep quiet, as I always do.  So does she cause me to be stressed?  Well just as I tell her that it's not our boss that has caused her health problems, so I can't claim that she causes me to be stressed.  The stress arises from inside myself but I guess my consistently stifling my annoyance and irritation - irritation against myself too for allowing myself to take these things personally as much as anything - that could be causally related to a rise in my stress levels...

Nice programme tonight on the universe.  Gravity.  Apparently when Einstein looked at the work of Newton in identifying gravity he was not satisfied.  He needed to explain what caused gravity in order to accept the phenomenon was truly explained.  He was able to do this in his theory of relativity. A modern scientist looking at microscopic rock fragments from Mars proposes that it is not possible to assert that the shapes are remnants of living creatures without being 100% certain they were not caused by something else. Of course he's right.  To assume causality we either have to prove beyond doubt that it is a remnant of a life form (and we can't) or that there are no other possible explanations of the effect.  Are there other plausible explanations?  Yes, it could have been an affect of the thin gold coating used to allow the sample to be accessible to the electron microscope - he proves this by duplicating the effect on a terrestrial rock. There's too much doubt for us to assume causality.

Tonight I'm tired.  I think the reason is partly due to a lack of sleep, but the cause (even of that) is a lot more complicated...

Consequences

So travelling uneventfully this morning when after the penultimate junction on the M25 traffic begins to slow. Check SatNav (on to check ETA and traffic issues rather than to remind me of the all-too-familiar journey) - road showing clear.  Round a bend and see up ahead there are lights on the big overhead motorway sign.  Too far away to read, but a traffic message none the less.  This particular sign is rarely lit to indicate distance to junction - something like 'Junction 21: 23 miles 36 minutes" - and anyway the pattern of letters doesn't match. It's definitely a warning of some kind.  The usual at this point is "Queue on slip road" but there are two many words for this.

We crawl towards the sign.  Then it comes into view: "Take your litter with you like other people do"  WTF?? Someone bored this morning, thought that they would put some irrelevant message up in the middle of the rush hour??  As we pass the sign, traffic speeds up.  I get to the slip and find there is no queue at all, unusual at this time of day.  So the congestion has occurred because of the sign, nothing else... Consequences.

This of course starts me musing.  There can be consequences every day for the small decisions that we make - many that we will never know anything about.  Of course all traffic accidents are due to consequences, if you think of it that way.  Presenting the key assumptions of the normal distribution to statistics students today my slide displays the claim: "80% of drivers believe they are above average."  Of course with the majority of any distribution scoring average (around 68% within a normal curve) this is an impossibility.  If you think you're good you're probably average.

So why do 80% of people think they are better than everyone else I ask?  Some blank looks, then one girl offers "because they are over-confident".  Yes, I respond - but why might drivers be overconfident of their road skills?  More blank looks.  Okay, well this may be a consequence of a psychological principle known as the fundamental attribution error (or correspondence bias or attribution error).  This is the tendency of all of us to confer dispositional-related reasons for the observed behaviour of others, whilst recognising situational influences relative to ours.  How might this apply to driving?  When we observe erratic behaviour in other road users we think they are useless drivers.  When we run into difficulties ourselves we blame it on the weather, the road, or anything other than our abilities.  So basically we think in comparison to others we're better drivers ;-)  A consequence of course of this way of thinking can be over-confidence...

Back to musing.  Today I'm rejecting Radio 4 in preference to sing along with my mixed tracks on a USB key. The music prompts me to think about Jon going out singing last night, a rehearsal for Don Giovanni.  He knows the opera well, he's sung the role several times but he still has trouble remembering the words.  Ah, I hear you say, but men are not as good as learning words as women; it's a man thing.  Well that may be, but not all men have problems learning words.  And another thing - I can't remember the words to many things I've learnt over the years, even though I practiced long and hard; but the words in a popular song, heard 10 or 20 years ago, can come back to me to such an extent that I can sing along with delight.  Now I know enough to realise this can't be random.  There has to be a reason why I find some songs etched in my mind and others totally elusive - and it isn't just the genre - there are snatches of other things that are similarly never far from recall...

I pass the Sterling corner roundabout.  There is Morrison's (where I enjoy shopping on my way home - been there a couple of years now) and a couple of other distinctive places I can't recall now (even though it was only earlier today) and a BMW car showroom (which I don't think I noticed ever before!).  So why, when mentioning to Jon about the roundabout yesterday did I say, "You know, the Truprint roundabout".  Truprint, Bonusprint, a series of photographic print services that have been gone for years - a consequence no doubt of digital printing and less need for large premises.  So why would I have associated the roundabout in that instance with the old shops instead of the new one I visit often?  A throwback?  What is a throwback anyway?

A throwback as I understand it is an occurrence which is linked to a previous state of being - so a throwback in terms of gene expression is a characteristic which reappears having supposedly been filtered out of the current species profile; or a person or thing having the appearance of something from a previous time - hence 'throwback to the 50's' in terms of home decor.  So something returning or alluding to a more primitive expression or type.  For memory then?  Neuropsychologists now tell us that the most primitive form of memory is emotional memory - basic emotional responses to meaningful (even prelinguistic) stimuli or events. So maybe an old memory replacing a more recent one may occur as a consequence of the previous memory holding some emotional significance.

Back to Truprint then - why the Truprint roundabout?  Well I recall now the first time we travelled down the A1 and I noticed the photographic development centres.  It gave me a strange emotional feeling.  For years Truprint, Bonusprint and others were an important part of my life; all the photos I took of the children were sent for developing in those gaily coloured envelopes.  There was a lot of emotional significance associated with those envelopes; precious memories, attempts to freeze in time happy moments all too transient as your children grow. My precious children, for whom I invested so much emotional energy over so many years.  No wonder it's the Truprint roundabout!

Now I think back to the music issue - and it strikes me of course that the reason why I remember some songs so well is because they hold emotional significance.  Other words are such a struggle to learn because they mean nothing to me.  It's a technical exercise, no more.  And of course, now I think of it, it's a well know psychological fact that emotional significance can enhance memory recall in many areas. We remember emotionally charged events more immediately and with more clarity than non-emotionally charged.  Where the music has meant something to me or stirred my emotions it is much more likely to be etched in my memory.

So perhaps part of why Jon has such trouble with words as opposed to the music itself is that it's the tunes he finds emotionally meaningful, not the words.  In contrast my popular music is a deliberate blend of music and lyrics which I like to listen to because together they hold some emotional significance for me.  It's no surprise really that I find them easier to remember.