Dr Rod’s Odd Blog (almondemotion)

A week of extremes, toing, froing and kneidels

Cripes.

Hard to know where to begin.

This has been a busy week.

I guess,

If you were generous,

You would say rich with experience.

Alternatively, you might sit somewhere, quiet, and overwhelmed.

Monday was the first night of Passover.

I have discussed this in a recent blog.

The retelling of the story of the escape from Egypt, the Matzah, ten plagues and empathising with the fate of those who would do us in.

It’s all in there. (The Haggadah).

Philosophy, speculation, drama, highs, lows, and communal songs.

On Monday I ran, for the first time in my life, our own home seder.

My son joined-in by WhatsApp, we used a copy of the Secular Seder (sans the almighty) shared by my brother in Israel.

It led us through the ceremony including a significant emphasis as I have already mentioned on the plight of others, of those less fortunate, the hostages and the Palestinians, the soldiers and the murdered.

In ordering my wording, I think, hostages or Palestinians first? What will readers expect? The tragedy of the numbers (Palestinians) or the tragedy of the living hell?

As an aside, at work, there has been a reorganisation, departments and teams have been moved around and, with this review, a decision was made to rename us; those working with me became group 4, the others are 1,2 and 3.

For some this number allocation was critical – I can’t be 3, we should be 2 because we are better than 1… that kind of thing.

Me, I’ve never really cared about nomenclature.

Although, yes, naming is important – anyone with a child will recall the days spent reading baby name books, consulting Google, family oracles and so on.

What’s in a name?

This condenses to words and their value.

I guess, with the writing of this blog, words should matter, they should carry importance – their shape, form, and structure lead to understanding; remember Heathcote Williams?

Our first, secular Seder went well.

We opened the door for Elijah, I produced although forgot to hide the Afikomen (Alfie Coleman, remember Nigel?), I even sang, in my cracked bass, Ma Nishtana followed by Dayenu.

On Tuesday night, we, that is my daughter and I headed to Sheffield for the communal Reform Second Seder.

This was the second Second Seder in my life; I will share some photos from the first, in 1983 in Glasgow.

Here (2024, Sheffield), a gathering of 40 or so local Jews of mixed background and heritage sang and recited the British Reform Seder, led by the melodious Sarah.

I supplied 40-odd peeled, hardboiled eggs and Kit made coconut pyramids.

I have to say, I don’t enjoy religious ceremony.

I bristle when God’s name and (his) gender are mentioned or any reference to worship – it is just not who I am; nevertheless, in tune with last week’s blog, doing what the rabbi does rather than what they say, I sang and recited.

At work were the usual ups and downs, challenges relating to colleagues and patients, inter-organisational relationships – everything that makes-up life.

At one point, I had the following conversation:

Patient – The consultant told us the biopsy was negative. No cancer.

Me – I didn’t realise there had been a biopsy…. Yes, here, (looking in the notes) it says, no cancer.

20 minutes later, thanks to a supportive colleague, I read the updated CT report.

Me – There is no doubt, it is cancer. It has spread.

Patient – Tears, shock. Realisation.

I don’t often break the news of new cancer diagnoses directly to patients – in our world of pathways and multidisciplinary teams, this is generally conducted in the sterility of a hospital clinic, not a living room with wood fire blazing.

The rocking chair where I sat to share the information, was decorated with cushions made from the shirts of the patient’s relatives who had died. An after death, memorial, akin to the sock wearing that some people prefer.

It was surreal and painful.

Yesterday I met a friendly rescue-Akita in an uncarpeted living room followed by a bounding Golden Labrador pup.

This week we saw the first sign of life of Hirsh Goldberg-Polin, the American Israeli hostage, now held in Gaza for over 200 days. His left arm missing following his attempt to save the lives of others by throwing a grenade back at Hamas. Have you seen the video of the bomb shelter or heard the testimony?

Hirsh, hair clipped and prison pallor, I had expected him to speak in American English, instead his captors enforced Hebrew and dictated his narrative.

For months, I had anticipated he was dead, now this.

Safe in Heaven Dead, said Kerouac.

On Tuesday I ran 10k, on Friday the temperature was one degree. This morning, I plan to swim in the lake. The rain has come and left and returned. Dubai has flooded. Rich people fight over the value of their stock, and I dream of crushed cars.

Tuesday, the first day of Passover was also my daughter’s almost Judenrein school culture day, the place of defaced Israeli flag and triggering moments.

I am listening to the story of Byron on The Rest is History and thinking about reading Don Juan.

These are chaotic times. Times of life you would call them.

From a narrow space; in and out of suffocation.

The Jewish festival of Pesach – Passover is upon us.

Pesach commemorates the period in Book of Exodus where the Israelites fled Egypt. It is core to Jewish belief and culture – from the ritual search for fragments of chametz – bread and other leavened items in the nooks and crannies of the houses prior to the start of the festival, through to matzah, the ten plagues and Next Year in Jerusalem.

Events start this Monday with prayers in the synagogue followed by the ceremony, then evening meal, conducted in line with the ancient order – seder, according to the guidance of the Haggadah.

And so, it is.

I remember as a child, my grandfather and father reading through the book in its ancient Hebrew and Aramaic (Chad Gad Ya), cantering at speed through the prayer sections and pausing at the songs for everyone to join-in; sitting with my family, my brothers and sister, me, the youngest always delegated to sing ‘Ma nishtanah’ – What makes this night different from all other nights.

They were good times, now locked away in my memory.

Over subsequent decades, with children of my own, whilst adhering to cultural Judaism/Zionism, I moved away from religion. If you want to understand the reasoning for my actions, you can read-back through old blogs; it is all there.

Something changed in the past couple of years, I am not sure what triggered this move, perhaps triggered by my mid-life, possibly a shift towards different Podcasts that influenced me even before October 7.

In part, this was a realisation that at the root of Judaism is not necessarily an absolute requirement to believe – there are many devout Jews who know that God is a fiction invented in Babylon, the stuff of legend, instead, the religion encompasses all. It is not necessarily the belief that dictates adherence, rather the practices or actions.

Do as the rabbi says, not as the rabbi does – a central tenet of my early life frustration.

If you (a man, I’m afraid) visit the Western Wall in Jerusalem, you will be approached by another man in dark suit, peyot and Stetson who will offer to help you don (put-on) Tefillin (phylacteries) – these are two prayer-containing cubes attached to lengths of leather one of which is wrapped around your left arm – close to the heart – the other around your head followed by blessings in Hebrew or transliterated English.

I am confident that a significant number of Jews visiting Israel do not have a deep understanding of Hebrew, consequently, the prayers are often said without the individual knowing their meaning.

And this for the rabbi/Habadnik is adequate. The act is the start. First begin with the prayer then move to understanding.

Traditionally such acts have been against my principles – I am a life-long seeker of meaning and here, the act is associated with relative meaninglessness.

Our tradition says, that is enough – another Pesach cliché, dayenu – sung at the Seder – ‘that would have been enough for us,’ I’ll include the lyrics at the end.

And so, there is a split.

You have people like me who refuse to do anything without an understanding of what they are saying or doing and others who are happy to go-along, daven in synchrony, recite, and go home for a well-earned meal.

In part I reflect on the trope:

‘You are shouting river to the sea… Do you know which river and which sea?’

‘… The Potomac?’

Words sans understanding chanted, shouted repetitively. Equivalent also to waving a Hamas flag or banner without a deeper understanding of the symbolism.

How does all this link to a narrow space?

Well, as I said, we are facing Pesach; this name relates to the Hebrew for Passover, which is a reference to the tenth plague, where the Angel of Death (Moloch Ha-Movet) passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt (those who had daubed their doors with the blood of a lamb) and killed the first born of the Egyptian households.

The escape from Egypt ensued, the parting of the Red Sea and so on.

In Hebrew, ancient and modern, Egypt is Mitzrayim, which has an alternate Talmudic translation as being not only the Pharaonic Kingdom but narrow space – akin to, strait is the gait and narrow is the way (Matthew 7:14).

We (Israelites) were in Egypt and in a narrow space (slavery), confined, restricted in our actions and movements; this led to Exodus, the return then exiles and subsequent return.

And, currently, April 2024, with fellow Israelis (and non-Israelis) captive in Gaza, situated on the border between Egypt and Israel, we are shifted three thousand years.

I recall another song from my days as a boy – during my ill-spent time in the Calderwood Lodge Choir (Apologies Mrs M).

There was a song (from Proverbs 24:17) commemorating Exodus – an event, wrought large in the biblical narrative.

In the song, the Israelites after crossing the Red Sea, into Sinai we presume, rejoiced first at their escape then at the deaths of the Pharoah’s soldiers. And with this, the focus of the song, God telling this Israelites not to celebrate the defeat of their enemies, not to rejoice at death or disaster even of those who would have either killed or returned them to slavery.

If your enemy falls, do not exult;
If he trips, let your heart not rejoice,

The earliest sanction against schadenfreude.

And today, we have the same lesson.

We pray for the release of the hostages, and we pray for the wellbeing of those injured and the memory of those killed in the war – the innocent Palestinians, the Israeli soldiers, the Bedouin girl injured by Iranian shrapnel on Sunday.

It is a neatly and circular argument that displaces the notion of action without meaning.

We remain in a narrow space.

Israel and the Jewish People are now marginalised more than at any time.

No, we are not in 1930’s although to some, the comparison is mortifying.

My daughter was recently attacked for her support of the genocide in Gaza.

It is not genocide, and my daughter is not responsible for the actions of the Israeli Government, nevertheless.

Yesterday, on a poster advertising a Culture Day at her school, the Israeli flag was defaced.

I learned of this recent event while I was visiting patients on my Friday rounds.

She and I both felt in very narrow albeit different spaces.

This takes me to the Sheffield Half Marathon, a fortnight ago. I ran with extreme effort up a very long and very steep hill, passing middle-aged, middle-class people waving Palestinian flags.

At one point, towards the end, there was a narrow space, both sides of the road with jeering flag wavers.

I later heard that one old man was shouting anti-Jewish slogans. I was fortunately spared the listening as I shlooried past with noise-cancelling headphones and the voices of Yonit and Jonathan of Unholy.

I remember the Ellie Wiesel aphorism about the Holocaust… Not all the victims were Jews, all the Jews were victims.

In my head I am thinking, as I try not to take the flags personally, not all the flag wavers are haters although all the haters wave the flags.

Perhaps not.

Perhaps I am paranoid.

They are after all, anti-Israel, not anti-Jewish.

Although, for the most (not all, I concede) Israel is the Jewish Nation, it is the ancestral homeland of the Jews, not returning to 1948 borders, returning to year 700 (BCE/BC), before the Mamelukes, the Ottomans, British Mandate and Romans, way, way back.

I wave this flag in support of the Palestinians.

OK.

Where is your Ukraine, Syrian Liberation Army or Rohingya flag? (I did see two Ukrainian flags on my run).

We call this Jewish or Isaeli exceptionalism.

One rule for the Jews another for everyone else.

Last Sunday Iran launched the biggest drone and missile attack in history against Israel and yet, the advice was, ‘don’t.’ (It is now Saturday, 20^th 2024 – it seems yesterday they did.)

10/7 was equivalent (and more barbaric) than multiple 9/11’s and yet, the Israelis should have sat on their hands.

Boycott Israel but not Russia or Yemen or Saudi or Qatar – indeed, take your sporting money and live it up for a few weeks during the footie.

Again, exceptionalism.

Here it is, I support the Palestinians.

They are also in a narrow space – the Gaza Strip being the essence of geographic narrowness and yet, I also support the oppressed across the world.

I don’t wave flags as I don’t know enough about all the different situations and yet hundreds or (tens of thousands if you live in London) believe they have enough information to take sides, to deliberate on right or wrong.

All very narrow.

I return to my original principles which are contrary to mainstream belief.

If you don’t understand the essence of your prayer, don’t say it.

Going through the motions might work for some, not for me.

Admittedly, thanks to my life in Israel, I understand the prayers, I don’t however accept the God or Elijah narratives.

Actions have meaning and without understanding and intent you are just another flag waver or poster defacer.

It has been a strange spring, with Easter then Ramadan now Pesach one after another, a holy run of monotheistic season-changes.

Does this bring us closer together or further apart?

As an aside,

Last week I visited our local big hospital for an MRI scan of my heart.

These are the things that middle-aged men find themselves doing on Sunday mornings.

The scan was on time, the staff warm and friendly.

The experience a mild trauma.

Lying for an hour in a different kind of narrow space – 10 cm between my chest/nose and the top of the scanner, I remained motionless for an hour.

It felt like a coffin.

I reflected on the radiographer’s perceptions and sight of me that would entail a view within; not seeing Rod’s surface as you might if you meet me, instead my innards. My heart, lung, internal organs.

A room with a view of my bones.

A side of me that I will never see.

Will they know me better than I know myself?

Perhaps.

They look within.

And the experience lasted an hour… Breathe in, now out… Now hold.

Not the six months our captives have been waiting for release in the sands of Gaza.

Dayenu

English translation	Transliteration	Hebrew
If He had brought us out from Egypt,	Ilu hotzianu mimitzrayim,	אִלּוּ הוֹצִיאָנוּ מִמִּצְרָיִם
and had not carried out judgments against them	v’lo asah bahem sh’fatim,	וְלֹא עָשָׂה בָּהֶם שְׁפָטִים
— Dayenu, it would have been enough!	dayeinu!	דַּיֵּנוּ
If He had carried out judgments against them,	Ilu asah bahem sh’fatim	אִלּוּ עָשָׂה בָּהֶם שְׁפָטִים
and not against their idols	v’lo asah beloheihem,	וְלֹא עָשָׂה בֵּאלֹהֵיהֶם
— Dayenu, it would have been enough!	dayeinu!	דַּיֵּנוּ
If He had destroyed their idols,	Ilu asah beloheihem,	אִלּוּ עָשָׂה בֵּאלֹהֵיהֶם
and had not smitten their first-born	v’lo harag et b’choreihem,	וְלֹא הָרַג אֶת בְּכוֹרֵיהֶם
— Dayenu, it would have been enough!	dayeinu!	דַּיֵּנוּ
If He had smitten their first-born,	Ilu harag et b’choreihem,	אִלּוּ הָרַג אֶת בְּכוֹרֵיהֶם
and had not given us their wealth	v’lo natan lanu et mamonam,	וְלֹא נָתַן לָנוּ אֶת מָמוֹנָם
— Dayenu, it would have been enough!	dayeinu!	דַּיֵּנוּ
If He had given us their wealth,	Ilu natan lanu et mamonam,	אִלּוּ נָתַן לָנוּ אֶת מָמוֹנָם
and had not split the sea for us	v’lo kara lanu et hayam,	ןלא קָרַע לָנוּ אֶת הַיָּם
— Dayenu, it would have been enough!	dayeinu!	דַּיֵּנוּ
If He had split the sea for us,	Ilu kara lanu et hayam,	אִלּוּ קָרַע לָנוּ אֶת הַיָּם
and had not taken us through it on dry land	v’lo he’eviranu b’tocho becharavah,	וְלֹא הֶעֱבִירָנוּ בְּתוֹכוֹ בֶּחָרָבָה
— Dayenu, it would have been enough!	dayeinu!	דַּיֵּנוּ
If He had taken us through the sea on dry land,	Ilu he’eviranu b’tocho becharavah,	אִלּוּ הֶעֱבִירָנוּ בְּתוֹכוֹ בֶּחָרָבָה
and had not drowned our oppressors in it	v’lo shika tzareinu b’tocho,	וְלֹא שִׁקַע צָרֵינוּ בְּתוֹכוֹ
— Dayenu, it would have been enough!	dayeinu!	דַּיֵּנוּ
If He had drowned our oppressors in it,	Ilu shika tzareinu b’tocho,	אִלּוּ שִׁקַע צָרֵינוּ בְּתוֹכוֹ
and had not supplied our needs in the desert for forty years	v’lo sipeik tzorkeinu bamidbar arba’im shana,	וְלֹא סִפֵּק צָרַכֵּנוּ בַּמִּדְבָּר אַרְבָּעִים שָׁנָה
— Dayenu, it would have been enough!	dayeinu!	דַּיֵּנוּ
If He had supplied our needs in the desert for forty years,	Ilu sipeik tzorkeinu bamidbar arba’im shana,	אִלּוּ סִפֵּק צָרַכֵּנוּ בַּמִּדְבָּר אַרְבָּעִים שָׁנָה
and had not fed us the manna	v’lo he’echilanu et haman,	וְלֹא הֶאֱכִילָנוּ אֶת הַמָּן
— Dayenu, it would have been enough!	dayeinu!	דַּיֵּנוּ
If He had fed us the manna,	Ilu he’echilanu et haman,	אִלּוּ הֶאֱכִילָנוּ אֶת הַמָּן
and had not given us the Shabbat	v’lo natan lanu et hashabbat,	וְלֹא נָתַן לָנוּ אֶת הַשַּׁבָּת
— Dayenu, it would have been enough!	dayeinu!	דַּיֵּנוּ
If He had given us the Shabbat,	Ilu natan lanu et hashabbat,	אִלּוּ נָתַן לָנוּ אֶת הַשַּׁבָּת
and had not brought us before Mount Sinai	v’lo keirvanu lifnei har sinai,	וְלֹא קֵרְבָנוּ לִפְנֵי הַר סִינַי
— Dayenu, it would have been enough!	dayeinu!	דַּיֵּנוּ
If He had brought us before Mount Sinai,	Ilu keirvanu lifnei har sinai,	אִלּוּ קֵרְבָנוּ לִפְנֵי הַר סִינַי
and had not given us the Torah	v’lo natan lanu et hatorah,	וְלֹא נָתַן לָנוּ אֶת הַתּוֹרָה
— Dayenu, it would have been enough!	dayeinu!	דַּיֵּנוּ
If He had given us the Torah,	Ilu natan lanu et hatorah,	אִלּוּ נָתַן לָנוּ אֶת הַתּוֹרָה
and had not brought us into the land of Israel	v’lo hichnisanu l’eretz yisra’eil,	וְלֹא הִכְנִיסָנוּ לְאֶרֶץ יִשְׂרָאֵל
— Dayenu, it would have been enough!	dayeinu!	דַּיֵּנוּ
If He had brought us into the land of Israel,	Ilu hichnisanu l’eretz yisra’eil,	אִלּוּ הִכְנִיסָנוּ לְאֶרֶץ יִשְׂרָאֵל
and not built for us the Holy Temple	v’lo vanah lanu et beit hamikdash,	וְלֹא בָּנָה לָנוּ אֶת בֵּית הַמִּקְדָּשׁ
— Dayenu, it would have been enough!	dayeinu!	דַּיֵּנוּ

Reference – https://www.haggadot.com/clip/dayenu-english-hebrew-and-transliteration

Day 178. Victor Frankl, Vishnu, and Shakespeare.

I was talking with my son last night,

Trying to explain my recent behaviour and mood.

My behaviour has been, let’s say, not great,

And my mood, worse.

Six months. It has been exhausting.

Each time I turn on the radio or the TV news the headlines are Israel and Gaza.

For six months the narrative has featured Israel aka the Jew as the aggressor, the one who disregards human rights, the oppressor, Destroyer of Worlds.

For those six months I have internalised every word.

Yes, I have post hoc rationalised

Interpreted for myself the various events which are too numerous to detail,

The accidental bombing, the tragic shooting, disproportionate use of power;

The commentators from Right and Left

The protest marches

On and on.

It’s exhausting we agreed.

A constant whittling away,

A corrosion if you like.

And in the face of this the reality we live and breathe, we have known that for all Israel’s mistakes, it is no more flawed than any other country trying to find its place in a hostile world, a democracy wrangling with the vicissitudes of extremism and social media, an angry man at the helm supported by similars, heckled by the hundreds and thousands.

Israel is particular and it is the same.

The same taxes, traffic violations, trial and tribulations.

No longer the light unto nations.

Although

Called out for special treatment

Whether because of Antisemitism

Or the notion,

Look what they did to you, how can you do that to them or anyone?

A covert reference to the Holocaust

An allusion to Egypt.

Last night, in reading Ten Percent Happier, Dan Harris met Mark Epstein.

Dan was surprised that so many Jews in America are leading lights in the Buddhist/Mindfulness movement.

He hypothesised that this perhaps had something to do with the spiritual/philosophical dimension of Buddhism that allows entry to Jews who can still retain their religious identity, unlike, say, Jews for Jesus, Catholicism, or Islam.

It is unclear, yet there is a whole Wikipedia page dedicated; Goldie Hawn. Go figure.

Mindfulness was where I began this blog almost ten years ago.

At that time, I was investigating the relationship between patient safety and Mindfulness.

If you are a doctor or a nurse and your mind is not focused on your clinical interaction, it is instead wandering to future uncertainties or past embarrassments, you are more likely to assign the wrong diagnosis, dose, or treatment.

What is neat about Mindfulness is its non-censorious approach to human behaviour.

So, your mind wandered, the fundamental is to bring awareness to that wandering and return to the breath. They might say.

None of the eternal damnation inherent in monotheism.

And, perhaps that is what I need to achieve for myself now.

Yesterday morning my mind bounced from Douglas Murray and Eylon Levy to the PA photograph of Shani Louk, Dan Harris, work, WhatsApp, Antisemitism, Palestinian suffering, depression, hopelessness, the weather and, my dog, all before breakfast, as Alice might say.

The mind, relentless, is capable of more thoughts, negative and positive in the blink of an eye, than well, pretty much anything.

None of this is necessarily good or bad. It is so.

For example, the falling leaf. Not good or bad. Halfway up or down. The end and the beginning.

And this reversion I require, for without it I am lost.

Perhaps we are all lost.

None of this undoes the suffering or the pain experienced in the world.

It does not justify or delegitimise; it affirms.

The vapour of suffering is all-encompassing.

Give it an inch, it will take a mile.

Cliches are for the uninitiated.

Nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so, said, Hamlet.

Focus on the breath.

Return to the moment.

Allow your mind to fill with now and empty itself of tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow.

200 degrees, drizzle, and the Easter school run in the Republic of South Yorkshire

Monday morning,

I’m on holiday.

Such fun.

Remember Miranda?

Seems a long time ago.

I guess it was

In relative terms.

Yesterday I heard an American journalist describe Binyamin Netanyahu as not the worst leader Israel has had, instead, the worst leader the Jewish people have had. In their history. That’s a long time.

I don’t want to get into Israeli politics today although the topic is hard for me to avoid.

I know I have lost readers from theold days writing about almonds and emotions – patient safety, and creativity.

Sometimes it feels like a scratched record.

The pain goes round and around with no one shifting the needle.

When you think about it, just as with history which for all intents and purposes is infinite so too are an individual’s areas of focus.

Fractal or cauliflower, Ceaușescu or Romanesco, all are open for business.

And yet, as with the depressives’ mind, the focus is narrow.

Razor-guided onto the negative.

This morning, I explained to my daughter the significance of the Kaffiyeh.

A friend wore one yesterday.

I gave a potted history of Lawrence of Arabia, Yasser Arafat, and the hazards of the Arabian sun.

Symbol of rebellion, solidarity, and ultraviolet protection.

Sometimes it is hard to escape the negative self-talk.

Put up and shut up.

If you are mindful you can focus on the breath, and nothing will disturb you.

Your amygdala will not be activated and all will be good.

Says the Buddha.

Not easy as you negotiate traffic on a rainy Monday morning in Sheffield.

Rain, rain go away.

It’s been the wettest February and likely March on record.

Climate change.

Climate crisis.

The Swedish one and her protest pantomine.

Near my house, a field has been flooded for months, it has become an inland lake. I’m sure the farmer isn’t pleased.

Then again, what do the farmers expect, as they participate in the raising of lamb and beef, fuelling our bellies, provoking our microbiome (dysbiosis they call it), and suffocating the planet (methane – do you get it?) – oh, and deforestation.

Too much time in fight or flight and your cortisol burns-out.

Exceed the recommended daily amount of sugar and you exhaust your pancreas.

It’s them or us.

Partisan or the greater good; rise above the petty.

Will Netanyahu’s nose-thumbing spoil Biden’s chance of a second term and lead to Trump II? Who knows.

As I said, there is a lot going-on.

I worry about my patients.

My family.

My dogs and tortoise.

Will the sun shine?

Last night I booked on the Sheffield Half Marathon. It’s in a fortnight. Not part of my planning, I saw the road closure signs yesterday (after the kaffiyeh) and thought, ‘Why not?’

Sheffield is hilly. Just like Rome, seven hills, they say.

And I wonder whether the race finish-line will be crowded-out by pro-Palestinians. Maybe. Perhaps.

My mind shifts to the guy scaling the town hall just after 10/7 to remove the Israeli flag and instal a Palestinian one. This before the bombing, before the claims of genocide or famine or starvation. Remember?

It’s all there. A potpourri.

I first encountered this in 1989 following my return from Israel. Essie has some in her bathroom. Occasionally scented. Often dry and dusty.

I think back.

Had we not left Israel at that time, my mum would have died when I was 17. As it was the following years were tough.

Think Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz. Tornado. Hurricane.

Happy Days.

I grew-up with the Fonz. Not realising there was a double love in my household. For the character first, Henry Winkler second.

Jew.

No more.

Franklin Foer wrote an article in The Atlantic this month – THE GOLDEN AGE OF AMERICAN JEWS IS ENDING. Much discussed in the Jewish media it gave us pause. That’s the Jews.

Dylan, Roth, Nimoy. Take your pick. That time has passed.

Days Are Gone, sing the Jewish-American bank Haim.

I complemented my son on his yellow ‘bring them home’ ribbon yesterday. It was the first I had seen in the UK. Maybe I should wear a Palestinian flag too he suggested. That would confuse the issue I replied.

Why not confuse the confusing?

It would be too much.

The engine can’t take it.

Says Scotty.

You wouldn’t get away with such stereotyping nowadays.

An image of the Titanic’s fake funnel comes to mind.

I remember a colleague’s favourite metaphor, like shifting the deckchairs on the Titanic.

A reference to the futility of reorganisation within the NHS, a system that transacts rather than transforms.

Who knows?

Enough is enough.

Maybe all this free association is good.

Kabat-Zinn says that mind-wandering is unhealthy.

I don’t know, sometimes it creates space to breathe.

Ghost town

I drive through the streets of my next door town, past the houses of former patients and perceive the ghosts.

Not actual ghouls, more their memory, the ripples in time and space left behind.

It’s weird.

My experience of that town is different to almost every other citizen.

I am a strange connection between disassociated souls.

Most are old, many had been living with dementia, severe frailty, or advanced old age before their passing, yet little beyond that commonality; Me, their doctor, they citizens. That is it.

I remember the house of A with his back door left open for Rover who would never return.

I remember B with her silken collie. Silk Cut and tidy front room.

C, headmistress, would perform Gilbert and Sullivan in her prime.

D coughing in bed, immobilised by motor neurone, or E, my other patient also with MND who, on our first meeting recited from memory verse after verse of Burns.

F old farmer, one of my first experiences of supporting a patient to die at home, in my early days, learning the relationships between family, the community nurses and me.

G who fell, broken hip and never left hospital.

H never stepped foot over the threshold of her door for a year of Covid, who on my advice went to hospital and did not return.

I and his tortoise. Who will tend to his hibernation now?

J, crooked neck, the remnants of Polio, organised garden and sailing awards.

K, ragged beard, depressed right up until the end.

L in her 90’s independent, overseeing an orderly home until it all fell apart.

M and the weekly flowers sent to her by late husband via intermediary long after he had passed.

N, I called round to head-off the police who had been called accidentally, allowing a dignified end.

O admitted to hospital against her wishes and all manner of treatments before death.

P, kind with a wonderful humour who was moved from care home A to hospital to care home B, then C, around the town like a chequerboard piece and then he went.

Q from Dumfries.

R and his tractor.

S and her cigarettes in the front porch.

T, her Geordie accent that made me feel good.

U, black Labrador at his feet.

V who said I was a ‘pussy’ embarrassing her family and making me laugh.

W former miner, man mountain whose final illness diminished his stature.

X nebulizer humming, wheezing away, asleep sitting up.

Y rake thin and feisty.

Z are all the rest, too many to count, all gone, all passed, and I think of the privilege of my work, meeting these people, with my burden of care and treatment, my plans for support all intermixed with their family’s fears and hopes. Here then gone. Dust to dust. I don’t attend the funerals. There would be too many and what would I say? ‘I remember when the doctor would…’ Says a patient, ‘Times have changed,’ I reply. I don’t feel sorrow so much as the absence, a lack of these souls. I wonder if they were all alive today what would be, how would they exist. Not a productive analysis. Most were at the end of long, painful disease or illness, they may not thank me for dragging them back from the other side. We are born and we die. We pass through this life with one chance to make a difference, to influence others, share hope and love and then, it is over, and we are dust or bones in the earth. I don’t pray as I have no belief. I hold them in memory which for me is a kind of remembrance. In my religion, yes, I am the solitary Jew, death is annually commemorated through Yahrzeit, a Yiddish word meaning year-time. In the week following the death of a parent or partner there is a special seven-day candle. My mum’s candle is still in my house, the Yahrzeit I never remember although eat time I see such a candle in the shops I remember and that is perhaps adequate. Many of my patients in their last weeks see the end, perceive, as in the Book of Daniel, the writing on the wall. They know. Some resist. Refuse to accept the inevitable and I usually support them in this perception; no point in ending hope I suppose and no, I don’t know the future; ‘How long do they have left,’ I am asked. Last week I learned, an appropriate response, which is not the time left, it is ensuring that every day counts. Seeing that there will be an end, for me, for you, dear reader and assuring that time is not wasted, that the hope of a do-again is acknowledged as futility. Live your life.

Another Saturday

The war continues.

As the days lengthen,

now spring,

soon summer,

a cycling of seasons.

The angst

The sorrow

The worry

Blooming like cancers.

Chancres.

Gouty rot.

This week has been tough.

My daughter was caught-up in some post-10/7 fallout, a social media debacle.

I’ll explain shortly.

Last week I didn’t publish a blog on this platform,

It was too difficult,

My first was sent elsewhere,

The second never completed –

In it, I discussed my frustration following a conversation with my brother, ‘I’m not really interested in the suffering of the diaspora. We, over here, are threatened with war on multiple fronts, hostages, terror, massacre, and so on.’

The conversation as I can best recall went, ‘I (me, Rod) was telling you how I felt,’ ‘You asked what I thought,’ my brother replied, ‘No, I did not. I was expressing my feelings, you returned with your thoughts/opinion.’

The conversation tailed-off.

I am conflict averse – a definition I have adopted from Jon Ronson. Sure, I can cope with disagreements although they are not my preference, I’d sooner everyone got on.

The phonecall didn’t end in a fall-out, there was no shouting, it tailed-off into transaction, ‘Have a good week,’ kind of thing.

And over here in the UK, we are fortunate to live in a country that is blessed with safety and security, our roads, schools, countryside are safe, we can roam where we like (so long as not onto ‘private land’ >trespassers will be prosecuted/their dogs shot<) – we have it good. For the most we don’t realise our good fortune.

Yes, we have a dissolute government and yes, young people struggle to buy homes or exit education-induced debt and yes, there are three million people in the country with food insecurity, many living with the threat of domestic violence or abuse; they aren’t in the headlines. The focus is Gaza. Although today, it’s Kate.

Apologies.

I veered into cynicism.

I mentioned my daughter earlier. She is, as far as I know ‘the only Jew in her school,’ she does not seek exceptionalism or special treatment, she merely wants to get on.

This week, she became entangled in something one of her classmates posted on social media. It wasn’t in the realm of overt Antisemitism – rather, one of those, ‘The Israelis are the new Nazis / the Holocaust in Gaza.’

Now, you or they can express an opinion based upon the many media images of shrouded Gazan children that indeed, the Israelis are Nazis.

I would argue that this is an oversimplification, not helped by Jonathan Glazer.

I suspect many young people have adopted this mantra Israel/genocide/Holocaust because they know little about any of the topics, neither the history or present of Israel, the meaning or reality of genocide or even what happened during the Holocaust.

The Israelis, have not, as far as I am aware, constructed factories to render Gazans into soap.

The expression of their opinion so entirely based on, let’s call it, informed ignorance, they do not realise the offence their words, they do not realise that to wish for the ‘non-existence of Israel’ is equivalent to the ‘non-existence of Jews’ (i.e. me, my family.)

If only we didn’t have Israel (or the Jews) everything would be OK.

The Palestinians would prosper, Darfur would be Disneyland and Yemen would open its ancient sites to Saga tour groups. If only.

You know of course what that ‘if only’ is – in the 1930’s it was called The Final Solution.

If only there were no Jews and no Israel, the world would be the best of all possible places.

Candide indeed.

Kate might not even have cancer. Sorry, that was unfair. I wish her well. I am in a pit.

I am not an Antisemite, only anti-Israel.

In a recent interview with the American Academic Ron Hassner, he expressed his opinion that Antisemitism and Antizionism are two sides of the same coin – one and the same.

No, no, I don’t have a problem with Jews, just Israel.

Do you realise the farcical nature of these words?

I don’t have problem with the French, indeed some of my best friends are French, it is the county, France, I want to wipe it off the map.

Yes, I support the gay movement, I just want same sex couples murdered.

Do you see the absurdity?

Israel is not all the Jews; it is the only Jewish state.

Yes, here you can use a Holocaust analogy, from Ellie Wiesel – not all the victims were Jews, all the Jews were victims.

On October 7, not all the victims were Jews or Israelis, all the Jews and Israelis were victims; even me, in my South Yorkshire home, a building designed without bomb-shelter or safe-room, felt the aftershock.

And yet, Hamas, don’t have an issue with the Jews or even the Israelis, they just want a state for the Palestinian People, they want dignity, respect.

Hamas spent the last 17 years preparing for an attack that would kill 1200 Israelis, Jews, and others, and in subsequent months 30,000 Palestinians, men, women and children, soldiers, and civilians.

Do you understand Islamic Fundamentalism?

Indeed, if you support any Fundamentalism, Jewish, Christian, or Muslim, you have missed the point.

Have you visited Iran recently? Spoken to the Islamic State? Broken bread?

Are these nuances superfluous? Better to stick to the narrative; good and bad, Israel and Palestine.

I remember a while ago recalling the F. Scott Fitzgerald quote relating to intelligence being the ability to hold two contradictory ideas in your head at the same time.

Perhaps the task is greater.

Hamas good and bad, Israel good and bad, Jews, good and, well?

Yesterday I saw that Rishi Sunak made a reference not to the Middle East, instead domestic politics as 4-D chess.

What dimension are we exploring here?

The irony of this is that to me there is a black and a white, which to others may be inverted.

I see Hamas as bad.

No redeeming qualities whatsoever.

They, their members would kill me without compunction given I stand in the way of their goal (Global Caliphate).

Palestinians are people, they can be good, they can be bad, such simplicity is outside any useful dialogue, just as with the Israelis, the Saudis, Qataris, or South Africans.

All are human, created in God’s image, you can’t say much more.

There are some very bad Palestinians, there are some very good, just as with Israel. Smotrich and his buddy Ben-Gvir, whilst perhaps allowing me to live in a shoot-em-up would not be put-out if I was collateral damage.

Palestinians were displaced in 1948 and 1967 and all the years in between and since, so too were Jews. One million Jews were expelled from Arab countries after 1948. Before this, up to a third of the population of Baghdad were Jews, equivalent numbers in Iran, Yemen, and Morocco.

They aren’t calling for a right to return.

I don’t want to become bogged-down in historical details, there is too much going on.

My daughter struggling to attend school, for example.

A while ago my son had a similar experience.

The attacks are multi-dimensional.

Jews don’t count says the comedian, David Baddiel.

No joke.

‘Unfollow her,’ I advised my daughter, perhaps in haste.

This led to a spiral of social disconnection that is too much for a young person; life is difficult enough. Negotiating the minefield of social media, likes, thumbs-up and snaps.

This blog has not been well structured, perhaps my writing never is. I’m not one for rigorous beginnings, middles and ends – I perceive life as being too unpredictable for that narrative, alternatively, it might be that I am poor at planning or thinking ahead. I suspect the latter.

Spontaneous by name, spontaneous by nature.

Some people, those who are kind would call me intuitive.

And where do I go now?

A couple of months ago I was ready to engage with the Anti-Israel/Socialist Workers in Sheffield; that was the day of the demonstration.

Now, I lack the energy.

As the weeks and months have dragged-on, I have become drained, hearing similar arguments, the same angry statements directed at me, my people, my race.

I am not Netanyahu. I am not even Israel although that is the name the Nazis gave every Jewish man (Sarah for the women). I am not Right or Left.

Who do you support? I am asked, as if the complexities of life are football.

Perhaps I should support myself.

If I am only for me then who am I?

I am me, for me, for my family, for my friends, my patients; for the innocents, for those who talk peace and reconciliation, for the young and the old, the future and the past, I am at one with the present. Everything else is a sham.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow.

A paean to Valerie

–

And I look across the water
And I think of all the things, what you’re doing
And in my head I paint a picture

–

Valerie

My microbiome

she is,

A trillion

microorganisms

inside my gut.

She turns the indigestible into vitamins and hormones

She maintains my existence;

She was there at the time of my birth

and will orchestrate my decomposition.

We live in symbiosis, the innumerable bacteria within us

We rarely stop to consider her contribution

To our health or wellbeing.

If Valerie is taken away,

Perhaps powerful antibiotics, chemotherapy, or radiation,

I am at risk of death,

She isn’t me,

Yet she is essential to me.

Valerie is lactobacillus and bifidobacteria,

She is streptococcus and bacteroides.

We seldom consider her contribution to our survival,

Without thanks

She, the collective, digests the undigestible

And lets us get on with our day.

With our enjoyment of Netflix, partying or sleep.

Valerie is dependent upon fibrous residue.

on our leftovers.

She is the fox that raids our innercity bin,

The unabsorbed strands and fragments of fruit and veg that bypass our ileum,

She revels in the cell walls, the nuts and wholewheat our bodies cannot handle,

This is her substrate.

And with these leftovers

she generates hormones and cell mediators,

Regulators of our immunity and wellbeing,

At a rate of a billion processes an hour she maintains the us that is us,

All without thanks.

Yesterday, I read an article in the BMJ about ultra-processed foods.

They didn’t specify examples, although you might consider some of the more obtuse breakfast cereals you offer your children or Pringles, Ben & Jerry’s, Hobnobs and their like.

There was a long list of the consequences of this diet, from heart disease to diabetes and depression.

Eating white bread makes you fat, not just the calories, it stimulates your hunger pathways to consume more.

Nothing is left untouched or unsullied.

Eat too much and it will see you off.

Go on, give it a try… Oh, you already do, you already have, since you were at school? That’s what you call a dinner? Oh god.

Whole foods.

Moving away from Paleo or Keto,

Approaching the consumption of our primate cousins, is what we evolved to eat.

(No, not eating them, eating what they eat!)

No meat, no dairy, dead animal flesh or slaughtered baby calf beverage, you might call it.

I won’t bang the vegan drum,

Enough just to focus on the biome,

The part of you that is inside that is not you, and its contribution to your existence.

From your first sips of colostrum to your last drop of water,

Valerie is working, developing, growing.

She is your company, your soulmate, your internal digestion engine.

Go on, give her a thought,

Reduce your focus on transitory gustatory pleasure (that pizza tastes divine) towards longer-term maintenance of your you.

Move away from the short-termism of a steak to a hazelnut, apple, or orange.

You’re saving yourself and the planet… consider the Burger King rainforests.

They are your friends, they won’t do the dirty when you back is turned, clogging your arteries or deregulating your DNA.

And what, if, after a lifetime of Valerie worship you are unlucky enough to succumb to heart disease, cancer, or dementia, what can you do? ‘I ate my broccoli and now I have cancer, god-damned health food!’ Like the runner who collapses and dies during the marathon, was it worth it? Wouldn’t he have been better staying at home and watching TV?

No, no, no.

Click to access bmj-2023-077310.full.pdf

Under the wings / Levadi / Alone

Tachat knafey ha Shechina

Under the wings of the Shechina

תחת כנפי השׁכינה

What is it like?

How does it feel?

When the rain falls

On your coat.

Winter morning.

The experience of one,

Of the collective.

Which has more value, resonance?

Falling apart.

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Disintegrating.

Melting wax.

Collapse.

This week I spoke to a group of paramedics from Sheffield.

The topic was ‘complex decision making,’

I suspect the content of my PowerPoint which focused on older people and their situation was somewhat wide of the mark, I rambled, nevertheless. Most appeared to listen. One man slept fitfully.

As with all my presentations over the past 20 years, my final slide is a thank you and a call for questions, my email address and blog link.

My blog, the one you are reading, began as an exploration into my relationship with patient safety, fear, and creativity; that is the essence of almond (amygdala) emotion.

For the first couple of years (I have been writing since 2015) I kept to topic, occasionally deviating into reflections of my childhood.

Since October 7, it has gone awry.

My head, previously filled with thoughts of patient experience, care, improvement and system change, has become overloaded with Israel, Gaza, the Jewish and Palestinian experience.

What people think of and about me.

Are you thinking what I am thinking or what I am saying or not saying or thinking?

After the talk, I considered my last post – purple sweet potatoes and Hamas and wondered what any of the paramedics reading the blog would think.

It’s funny.

Several years ago, before I gave-up lecturing medical students, I once told the audience – 150-odd third-years, that my blog had been banned (It was felt at the time by my employer that I was too negative about some patients’ experience). This led to a transient spike in readers.

I got out of the medical school talk just in time; today they would rip me apart. My references to Rabbi Hillel (standing on one foot), Maimonides and others would likely be seen as overstepping the mark.

(The rationale for my stepping down after a 15-year run of lectures had been that I couldn’t connect with the students, ‘They are bored, not listening.’ Now I am positively disconnected. Snapped.)

Perhaps the paramedics stopped at the title, ‘What is this nonsense?’ Perhaps they read-on.

I have developed a suspicion that fills me up.

I interpret the motives of others as actions based upon what rather than who I am.

‘Did they hear what I say or were they thinking about what I did or did not say because I am a Zionist?’

Later that day , I was chaired a meeting.

One of the participants called for a focus on diversity.

I agreed. I found myself agreeing too much.

I wondered, ‘Do they perceive me as racist?’ (Jews Don’t Count, etc.)

Are they looking at me through a lens of the Jew who hates the Arab?

Is this judgment? Paranoia?

There is a branch of popular psychology related to the analysis of neuroticism.

You know, when you have a spot you scratch and, the more you scratch, the more you imagine people are looking at you and the more you feel looked-at, the more you feel the need to scratch.

A spiral of introspection.

Yesterday I saw a post on Instagram, ‘It’s OK to lose friends over October 7^th.’

I wondered whether this has happened to me. Have I been singled-out into the black and white of social media determinism?

Have I unwittingly been unfriended?

Or is this all out of proportion?

Last night we watched Au Revoir Les Enfants. It is a movie set in 1944 France. A Jewish boy is placed into the care of a Catholic school. ‘The ending is awful,’ my daughter said.

I sensed what was coming.

I left after the scene in the swimming pool, ‘No Jews Allowed,’ as the man with a yellow Star of David passed through.

Beforehand I had switched-off the news when a big-bearded man from Birmingham, labelled ‘activist’ was interviewed by Krishnan as to whether he thought it reasonable for anti-Israelis to protest outside the houses of MPs.

This interview followed a discussion with Ehud Olmert, former Israeli PM.

From global leader to guy from Brum then fraught Labour MP, too scared to say what she thought, seeking the middle ground.

Beforehand I had seen the call to ban Israel from the Eurovision Song Contest. The cataclysm of glam.

It’s all too much.

Too much and too little.

I, the only Jew in the town, stands alone.

I consider my options.

Moving to Israel is not on the cards.

Stay in the UK and keep my head down – delete my blogs and return to a focus on health and social care, my areas of expertise, comfort.

Do as my great-grandparents, divest myself of Drozynski into Douglas; become an Englishman. Hide the tzitzit, trim the beard.

Scotland is out; The SNP wouldn’t want me.

Thirty thousand children killed.

My head spins.

Netanyahu and Smotrich.

Sinawar and Haniyeh.

Scharchoret (סחרחורת) is the Hebrew word; alliteration that translates to dizziness

When I was 19 or 20, I remember an awful episode on the Waltzer in Dundee. My friends and I took our seats and the machine rotated. It was my first and last fairground ride. A young man ‘carney’ in Stephen King speak, spun the car, we, human autoclaves were carried away; it ended with collapse, with vomiting and scharchoret.

Go back into your cave.

Return to your shell.

Yoda my tortoise has been in hibernation since October 7^th, lucky him.

The only places I feel safe are when reading or sleeping. All other times, the unexpected can arise.

‘Hey you, Jew.’

The inadequacy of my language is a let-down.

I should do better.

This morning, I am in Sheffield, a return to the market for purchases of purple potatoes, turmeric, and bird’s eye chilli.

Will there be a protest? From the River to the Sea… OK to call for the end of Israel and the Jewish people on placards outside parliament, OK in Sheffield.

Will they be chanting for my destruction?

The tightrope of life in 2024.

I know it could be worse.

No one is making me wear a yellow star.

Although perhaps they would be happier if I were not.

If I were deleted, undone.

Erase Israel, its ten million citizens and replace them with Islamic State.

In the eyes of many that would be a solution.

Like Dara Horn says, People love dead Jews.

Jew as underdog is acceptable.

I lapse to thinking about the reality of the numbers of those affected.

The families wiped-out.

Yes, 1200 in Israel is equivalent to 70,000 in the UK; twenty or thirty thousand in Gaza, what is their comparison? Can there be an equivalent?

Why rally against Israel when Hamas is the enemy?

Jews fall, Palestinians fall, and the Ayatollah rants.

Protesters burn the Israeli flag and forget they are participating in a bigger intercontinental war of culture and religion. They, pawns between East and West, China versus America versus Russia, fallout of a fundamentalist battle-front, a race for supremacy in a world running short of resource.

Will the war expand?

Will this year’s Ramadan mark the beginning of World War 3? Will China move on Taiwan?

It is a precarious game of intercontinental dominoes.

My tile matches yours.

We worry about the moment, the payment of bills, demand letters, we race to payday and look for the end of the month.

Scharchoret.

Vic Reaves and the Wonder Stuff.

‘Fellows hanging round you all the time,’ I collapse on the beer-stained dancefloor, cigarette smoke thick, blending with dry-ice.

In my first term of university, three friends visited me from Israel; they were on a trip prior to enlisting in the Army. Somehow, we all squeezed into my small room in Belmont Hall.

Today there would be an outrage.

Not tonight.

Personae non-grata.

You have failed the entrance requirement.

Not one of us.

You know your Outsider stance?

It is now your DNA.

Retina-stamped.

All good, all bad; innocent, guilty.

Exhausting.

A minute is a long time when you are holding your breath.

A hundred years is the turn of a page.

A fluttering of words, documentation blurred into lies and miscommunication.

No one wants to listen.

In my talks I often advise on the best way to support those living with dementia during moments of distress is, time, and space. Step back and remove the threat you are posing. Slow; don’t immediately administer the intramuscular sedative, allow the heightened fear-state to diminish and all will be well.

Must act now. Must act now.

Silent for a moment.

The day is clear.

Zero degrees in Doncaster.

A wood pigeon is cooing.

My dog stretches then curls on her rug.

If only moments like this could continue.

And then,

A bomb drops, a soldier falls, bullet through the head; life ended.

Stock exchange shifts money, transactions of evil men, and the world continues its descent.

I get why free divers risk their lives swimming to a hundred meters into the sea.

It is quiet down there. Silent.

No outside interference; just the mindfulness, the pressure of water and the dark.

I get it.

Levadi

Alone (aka levadi*)

Purple sweet potatoes and Hamas in town.

Are they representatives of Hamas?

It’s hard to tell.

I suspect their intentions are mostly benign,

The actions of people

Aspiring to do the right thing,

To stand in solidarity

With the oppressed

Nevertheless,

They

Shouted

From the river to the sea…

Yesterday, I visited Sheffield to buy some purple sweet potatoes. Those powerful antioxidant secrets of Okinawan longevity are not available in my local shop.

I had anticipated the usual stall with a dissolute man expressing his despair for Palestine and antipathy towards Israel.

I had planned this time to speak to the man or woman at the stall, to listen to their claims and reveal or not; I was going to decide.

Most times, when I visit Sheffield City Centre, I scowl past, with feelings of despair.

I know this plan was risky, not physically; I didn’t imagine they would point their finger, shout ‘Jew’ and follow-on with blows to my head, no, more from a modern-day triggering perspective; all the emotions, angst and frustration that have inhabited me since the 7^th of October.

As I walked from my car, I could see Palestine flags in distance. I realised this was more than one or two old men selling the Socialist Worker.

A group had set-up camp outside Barclays with children’s shoes and bloody handprints, a tent held a poster with my brother’s company, calling for boycott.

This felt a little like the rabble outside Waitrose last year (well before 10/7) who admonished me for buying Israeli dates. (See here).

I hadn’t realised that Barclays supported Israel. I’ll have to investigate. Perhaps change my bank.

Initially I went around the protest, visited Up & Running for new socks then retraced my steps and approached the crowd.

There was a young guy with loudspeaker, shouting. He looked sixteen, maybe older.

I listened for a time, expressionless.

It was then that they started with ‘from the river…’

Not knowing what to do, I called my brother.

I thought, his connection, via WhatsApp from Ra’anana might help.

The line was bad, and he couldn’t hear. Perhaps serendipity, he has enough going-on.

The day before I had listened to Yossi Klein Halevi talking with Amanda Borschel Dan about the war and his perspectives of the present and the future.

He alluded to the river, ‘Most of them, if you ask, don’t know which river and which sea.’

In case you don’t know, the river within the chant is the Jordan River and the sea is the Mediterranean. The attainment of which is the obliteration of Israel. Jew, Christian, Muslim, Bahai. Hamas doesn’t discriminate. The river chant is the real Mc Coy, it is the mainstay of Hamas’ propaganda.

Kill all the Israelis and we will attain our land of Palestine.

It is a delusion that sits at the heart of Palestinian problem (the Israelis, FYI are not going anywhere.) It is the delusion that has led to the Palestine Authority and Palestinian leaders through the decades, all the way back to 1948 rejecting peace with Israel or accepting an independent country of their own.

They refuse to accept a West Bank and Gaza, only the entirety of the land is adequate.

I don’t want to deviate too much into Middle East politics as this is even more divisive and I am not an expert, suffice it to say, when these protesters shout, ‘From the river,’ they for the most know which river and which sea and their intentions albeit stupid are informed.

All this takes me to the Women’s European Basketball match between Israel and Ireland where the Irish players refused to shake the Israeli players’ hands.

As if the Israeli team are responsible for the deaths in Gaza.

Would they have shaken the hands had there been no 10/7?

Knowing the political dimensions of Ireland, they probably would have still turned away.

I remember the account of Blindboy not supporting SodaStream as it is an Israeli company (providing employment for Israelis and Arabs, lost in the narrative), this dissimulation is part of the simplicity of hate, the naivety of black and white; a refusal to learn the history and see the reality, to apportion blame on one side (Israel) and not the other (Hamas/UNRWA/Iran), to see the Palestinians and the Irish and the Israelis as groups representative of the whole, without the subtle determination of individual feeling and emotion.

I don’t hate the Palestinian People, or the Irish; I think the concept is moot.

Neither exist.

My grandfather fled Palestine in 1947, I am a Palestinian.

I am American Irish. My ancestors left in 1850.

The leaders, Netanyahu, Sinwar/Abu Mazen and Varadkar and are not the Israeli, Palestinian or Irish people, just as Rishi is not me. Thank goodness. even though my politics are Left, I am not Starmer.

I am me with all my failings.

Generalising a people as the enemy, as that which must or should be destroyed is antithetical to a meaningful outcome, to dialogue.

This morning, I listened to an interview with Israeli rapper, Noam Tsuriely.

His mother was born in France, his dad, Israel of Yemenite origin. He is fluent in Hebrew and Arabic, English and I imagine French. Polylingual.

One of his most famous songs, Nus Nus (נוס נוס) is sung one half in Hebrew the other in Arabic, to represent the duality of Israel, and the challenges encountered by those who only know one or other language and the extent to which can they meaningfully interact. They hear what is said but the communication is lost. A metaphorical pean.

Fifty-fifty.

Where are you on the scale?

Where am I?

I hear Hebrew, English and a smattering of Arabic, Yiddish and the various European languages, a mixture, like the analysis of most European DNA.

Little bits of this or that.

‘I have a surprising amount of Neanderthal DNA,’ Announced Cat Bohannon in her book, Eve.

Whether my double helix consists of little bits of Arab, Israeli, Muslim, Christian or Jew, does not really matter, as my spirit, my mens is a creation of all these elements, a goulash of meat and milk (prior to my veganism), kohlrabi (Israeli), purple sweet potato (Okinawa), chilli (Columbia), zaatar (Palestine) and turmeric (India); I could go on. You get the idea.

Let’s enjoy the Potluck and avoid the monoculture.

Stay out of the grass and play in the wild.

We all access the same sun.

Hasn’t he been cancelled?

I don’t know the details of my daughter’s conversation with her friends.

It related to an actor I don’t know, from a show I have never watched.

He has, I understand, been cancelled.

I know that ‘cancel culture’ is discussed these days, until yesterday I had not realised that young people literally talk about it.

I do not know the details – my daughter wasn’t altogether clear either, suffice it to say, it had something to do with Judaism and Israel.

I don’t think I have been cancelled or even possess the potential.

I imagine, to be cancelled you first must be popular and with my low-profile, at least in the blogosphere I am safe.

Quel relief.

I heard on a recent Podcast with American academic and tech entrepreneur Scott Galloway that his affiliation with Judaism, the Jewish people and Israel had ‘lost him 100,000 listeners.’

I don’t know the details.

This was part of the question as to why more Jews in prominent positions had not expressed their grief at the events in Israel and Gaza.

He suggested it was the potential fear of revenue or career opportunity costs to people like Mark Zuckerberg, Sergy Brin, Daniel Radcliffe, Harrison Ford and others, if the youth, the most active users of social media decide to cancel them.

On Christmas Day, Stephen Fry gave a moving description of his experiences as a gay man and a Jew living in the UK.

I don’t think Stephen has been cancelled, perhaps.

Clearly what was said was curated, it expressed everything that the right-minded feel and believe, for example, that Hamas are the destroyers of the right and the good, the citizens of Israel and Gaza are the victims of their apocalyptic intentions.

Nevertheless, for the most part, particularly amongst young people who, paradoxically are frequently masters of nuance and subtlety, yet who have fallen on this occasion into the trap of the dialectic, good vs bad.

Tik Tok says Israel is bad, Hamas good and so it is.

I have found that young people, digital natives, are so attuned to emotional entanglements, cultural and gender identity that they are supersensitive to what is right and what is not, this perhaps is the explanation – the impassioned tend to be the most ardent supporters or detractors of whatever it is that clashes with their values.

And so, he was cancelled.

Go ahead, cancel me if you can.

I joke.

Please don’t.

I am sure, to be cancelled, even when you are as insignificant as I, must be painful.

It is said, before God created light, the world existed in a state of chaos. Tohu Va-bohu, in Hebrew.

It occasionally feels like our trajectory.

Are our lives getting out of hand or is there simplicity?

One of the reasons I enjoy visiting my older patients at home is the perceived sense of order and coordination.

They have, for the most, overcome the challenges of life and now live in what can be very constrained circumstances, yet, situations that are clearly definable, whether through the organised visits of family or carers or the arrival of the district nurse.

Their aged bubbles, which I suspect for them are too brief, represent epitopes of harmony.

X X

When I visit my patients, I often map-out the route to their houses on my phone. This helps me arrive on time via the best route.

Yesterday I visited a few whose addresses I already knew by heart.

As I drove, I passed houses and was hit by the lives that had passed.

The house where Mr X or Mrs C lived, the bungalow, now with new tenants, the flat, long vacant. It seemed, everywhere I looked there were memories of those I had known. Their idiosyncrasies, likes and dislikes. Ghost Town. I think of the song by Madness. Only the ghosts are not of those moved to the city but moved from life into the past.

Here lived Mr A, six foot five, coal miner and artist

Here was B, electrical engineer and poet

Here C, lover of dogs; whatever happened to Rover?

D, headmistress and erstwhile actress.

E, 97 and too frail to go on,

F, indoors for a year fearing Covid before dying in hospital from the infection

G, he’s not deaf, you don’t have to shout.

H, Polio, and twisted neck.

Gone, faded.

The old farmer, tractor owner, cyclist, paramedic.

A city of the living, a town of the dead.

Our existences cycle and recycle.

A treadmill of doing and being.

Cancelled?

Singing rabbi and The Jew on a train

As I decided on the title of this blog I had a flash-back to the 90’s.

The Singing Detective.

The BBC masterpiece written by Dennis Potter, starring Michael Gambon.

Images of the protagonist’s face coruscated with infection and scales of psoriasis, interspersed with hallucinatory dancing and surrealism. Maybe I am misremembering.

The rabbi is Rabbi G of Sheffield.

I won’t give you his name, I am sure you can Google him.

Unlike most of those characterised in my blogs, he is not a melange or anonymous interweaving of fact and imagination. He lives!

He is big and bearded with a large belly.

He wears his kippa tilted at 45 degrees and his large black Platchige sits straight.

I encountered him on Monday at Sheffield’s Holocaust Remembrance Ceremony. I was going to type, ‘Remembrance ‘Festival’,’ when I realised that would be wrong.

Yes, Sheffield.

City of the flag.

Remember the media event when a man scaled the City Hall and removed the Israeli flag replacing it with a Palestinian one in the days after 10/7?

Here is a link.

I don’t want to venture into the cultural and ethnic wars raging within Sheffield today, enough has already been written.

The event was not secret although it was not publicised.

In the preceding days I searched online to confirm details; there were none. I had learned about its existence via my synagogue WhatsApp group.

Now, after the event it is here.

The lack of advertising, presumably a strategy to minimise the risk of protests or attacks, or, it could be the council’s inept communication team. I suspect the former.

I discovered the event is held annually in Sheffield. I had never heard of its existence despite living here for over 20 years.

A secret remembrance.

Telling.

In attendance was the chief executive of the council, mayors, and other dignitaries but no publicity.

I sat with my daughter and listened to the speeches.

The rabbi arrived late.

The special guest was the 94 year old Hedi Argent, Holocaust survivor who extemporaneously related her story, sans notes or prompts. She was frail although her strength was obvious.

She described her early life in Vienna, the Anschluss, Christalnacht, attacks on her and her family and ultimate escape to England.

I watched the rabbi.

He slept fitfully through most of her talk.

Perhaps he had seen her before.

I diagnosed likely sleep apnoea although I note he didn’t snore; perhaps this is a skill acquired in Yeshiva.

After Hedi, the rabbi took the stage and related the remembrance to some biblical lessons which I have unremembered.

Then he sang.

It was the song I can’t forget.

In a watery baritone he sang in English, accompanied by a schmaltzy electronic recording of amateur piano and drums.

The lyrics recalled ‘the numbers on my arm’ those being the tattoos assigned by the Nazis upon arrival at the concentration camps and a separate allusion to the time when all those alive then ‘will be gone.’

I thought of Hedi and her future death.

I caught my daughter’s eye.

There were six or seven verses.

I flashed back to the Late Reverend Levy of Giffnock Synagogue whose voice would still even the most distracted heart.

How different.

After the ceremony my daughter asked to say hello to the rabbi.

He was involved in conversation with some of the dignitaries; I was anxious to get home for the dogs.

‘Let’s go,’ I said.

We left.

‘I never got to say hello to the rabbi,’ she later expressed.

And, had my haste been solely inspired by my dog’s needs?

During the interminable singing I returned to a separate memory.

That of my mum’s funeral.

I am a member of the Sheffield Reform Synagogue.

She and my dad in their later years joined the Reform Synagogue in Glasgow; for them this was more a social act than one informed by spiritual ideology.

Their American female rabbi whose name I have forgotten was warm and welcoming, supportive at the end of my mum’s life.

The break came when the owners of the Jewish Cemetery in Glasgow forbade her (the rabbi) from officiating at my mum’s funeral.

It is a grudge I have never overcome.

My siblings and I, rather than inviting the Orthodox male rabbi from the other congregation, officiated ourselves.

It was more heartfelt.

Orphans together, leading the Kaddish.

This, and various other niggles over the years – my departure from the Rabbi’s house in Jerusalem mid-meal as thoughts of A Handmaid’s Tale overcame me back in the 90’s.

The angry attitude of some Orthodox hypocrites I have known, has distanced me.

We left without the hello.

At the back of my mind was the consideration he might not look at my daughter as Jewish, as per his interpretation of the Halacha she is not; within the more inclusive world of Reform Judaism, she is embraced.

A toxic division I wanted to avoid.

I ran scared.

XXX

The week before, I had travelled also with my daughter to Manchester for the Northern March Against Antisemitism.

The rally, chaired by the redoubtable Baron Mann, had speakers from different political parties as well as the 94 year old Ike Alternman.

On the train to Manchester, we sat in first class. A rare extravagance.

Next to us a friendly man in his 60’s engaged in conversation.

He was conducting train customer satisfaction surveys.

The rest of the train was overcrowded, UK 2020’s style, with people standing, some sitting, perhaps lying on the floor.

We chatted.

I don’t usually talk to strangers; my life as a doctor, Monday to Friday is so draining that I find myself wiped-out from additional conversation, for the most I keep myself to myself, I read my book or complete the crossword.

There was something about him that was different.

Something that encouraged discussion.

I couldn’t tell what.

I watched him in action; he joked with other passengers and the two staffers with the drinks’ trolley (which they couldn’t move through the train because it was so rammed).

‘Where are you going?’

‘We are off to Manchester Cathedral.’

‘Have a good time.’

The march was affirming. Peaceful with an interesting mix of people from the North of England. A smattering of Israelis, an occasional Chabadnik.

A group of young Yeshiva boys danced in a circle and sang.

Chants of ‘Am Yisrael Chai’ rang out.

When the rally was over, concluding with God Save the King then Ha’Tikva, we returned to the train at Piccadilly.

Our customer survey man was on the train as were the same staff; we smiled, ‘I see you are back,’ I commented.

‘Successful trip? What did you do?’

This time, I was emboldened by my experience, ‘We attended a march against Antisemitism.’

‘My sister went, unfortunately I couldn’t as I was working.’

We talked further in the code of diaspora Jews.

This skein of improbability had placed us both on the train at that moment.

The likelihood of this encounter was miniscule and yet, it was.

XXX

I later further considered why I had not announced at the outset, ‘We are joining a protest against Antisemitism,’ rather than my guarded, ‘We are going to the Cathedral,’ (where the march began).

I guess the same subservience or fear that made Sheffield City Council hide the Holocaust ceremony.

XXX

I am a diasporic Jew.

No matter my allegiance to The Land.

No matter my idiosyncratic ways, many of which were influenced by my time in Israel as a child.

When you exist within a minority of a minority of a minority you learn to walk between the shadows.

XXX

Proud Jew?

I am not proud of much, except my wife and children.

I accept my existence as it is.

No better or worse than my peers.

My constituents are the same stardust as everything else.

Now and Zen.

Singing rabbi or detective, all scintillations.

XXX

A doctor should know better. Blueberries and Camomile.

Here is the start of the story.

About 18 months ago I began running, again.

After a hiatus of 15 years, I set about recovering my fitness.

First with couch to 5K then swimming in the cold waters of Mavers and cycling the ups and downs of South Yorkshire. My dogs became fitter, I took them further afield.

I had already given-up alcohol, now I moved to wholly plant-based food, veganism if you like.

I had a blip over Christmas 2023 where I ate too many sweets and chocolates although I am now back on the straight and narrow.

Things going well.

Despite this, my knees ached. As did my ankles and frequently my lower back and hips.

As a doctor you wonder about these things; my GP checked me for rheumatoid – thankfully none; I plodded-on. Some of the enjoyment of running diminished, I continued, nevertheless.

In the mornings I would regularly wake with stiff joints (medics call this early-morning stiffness, a classic arthritis symptom), after hobbling to the loo I would often take Paracetamol and Ibuprofen to help me get-on.

Nothing really worked.

I was existing as a paragon of health, trying to improve my cardiovascular fitness and yet, more pain.

During that time, I had also lost over 10kg in weight which if anything was meant to help.

I imagined one of my patients asking, ‘Doctor, I am doing all the right things, what is happening to me?’

I don’t know if my experiences are unique, although, from talking with others I suspect they are not.

A little like a smoker’s, ‘My breathing was worse when I stopped smoking, I’ve never had this cough before.’

Nietzsche’s what doesn’t kill you figures.

My attempt to make life better has made life worse, I will stop.

Can I have a Double Cheeseburger with fries and a large Coke?

This was the situation until, I listened to some of Dr Greger’s narrative.

Greger is an American doctor.

He studied agriculture before a degree in medicine.

He knows things.

He is fascinated by nutrition and the way in which the diet interacts with the body.

My wife was already a follower, often watching and referencing his many You Tubes.

I found his most recent book in Foyles, Charing Cross Road at the end of December.

The book is large. I leafed-through, considered buying and instead downloaded from Audible.

Greger has reviewed thousands of articles relating to diet and its effects on health, wellbeing, and longevity. I forgot to mention, his book is called How not to die. (A previous publication is How not to diet. Funny.)

Some of the studies have been randomised, double-blind and controlled, several meta-analyses, many not. Some use humans as the subject or the outcome, more-often drosophila, or C. elegans – a roundworm.

For example, a daily dose of 20mg of Echinacea contributed to a 30 per cent increase in the lifespan of C. elegans.

I made-up that fact. It isn’t true (Greger says there is no evidence for Echinacea in its more common role as a cold-symptom reducer.)

The book’s underlying philosophy is, if you want to live a long, healthy life, your chances are increased by:

Avoiding saturated, particularly animal fat

Avoid animal derived foods, eggs, dairy, poultry, beef

Avoid refined foods, for example white flour, white rice

Avoid fizzy drinks

Eat lots of cruciferous vegetables (broccoli, Kale, sprouts)

Eat purple sweet potato (Okinawa style)

Eat nuts

Drink camomile, hibiscus, green and ginger teas

Avoid salt

Use chillies and spices as a salt alternative, or if using salt use Low-Salt

Pile-on the Turmeric

For some, these recommendations would require a wholescale change in their approach to what they eat; out with the ready-meals, the take-aways, shop-bought curries, in with home cooking and fresh produce.

Before reading the book, I had already made the switch to whole-foods, buying sweet potato, kale and carrot and making my dinner from scratch.

Since the book I have added Turmeric to my meals, I have piled-on garlic, spiced-up with chilli and moved to hibiscus and camomile teas.

A slight deviation.

Nothing dramatic.

Dr Greger says, if you have two equivalent choices – lard or extra virgin olive oil, take the latter; it works for the Ikarians.

What has happened?

My aches have vanished.

Gone.

As if they never were.

Is this placebo or are the antioxidant, nitrous oxide releasing, anti-inflammatory effects of what I am eating and drinking addressing my symptoms?

Hard to say.

I have not yet recommended this to my patients.

I don’t think I could prescribe Turmeric supplements even if I wanted.

This could be chance. The end of my pain coinciding with my newly yellowed fingers (Circumin, the chemical in Turmeric).

Difficult to say.

I am an ‘n of one’ as they say, my experiences as an individual don’t count for much (despite what politicians say and think).

Modern medicine is based upon evidence and there is no evidence for Rod eating blueberries in January (I had previously not bought out of season; now I know why the supermarkets stock so many) or kiwis, mango, or strawberries (all good stuff, all contributors to the health of my microbiome).

On the microbiome, Greger has had me think of the billion, billion bacteria in my gut – my microbiome that functions as an important part of bodily homeostatic mechanisms, as a dependent that requires the correct nutrients to do its thing, secreting vitamins, cell regulating factors, anti-inflammatory cytokines and so on.

(I have new pet, I’ll call her Valerie.)

If truth be told, I am excited. I wonder what next.

I am already increasing my running mileage. Perhaps a half marathon. I might increase my swim distance this summer. Heck, my mood, and resilience have even improved (Remember Friday?)

I am off to the lake shortly. Brrrr 5 degrees.

Then some more healthy produce purchase.

Have a good week.

B’shert – what’s meant to be

My dad was a fan of the Yiddishism ‘b’shert’

This was used whenever something untoward happened at school, work or home.

It loosely translates as, ‘It was fated,’ or perhaps, inevitable.

The original context, I can imagine:

The Cossacks raped and pillaged. B’shert.

The death of the dog, the cat, the loss of money, exam failure and so on.

Yesterday, I crashed my car.

Of, perhaps to make matters worse, my wife’s car.

A multi-vehicle pile-up on the M1.

The kind of thing you read about on the news.

There was a brief mention on Radio 2, I am told.

I and three other drivers blocked a busy motorway entrance at Friday morning rush hour, for an hour and a half. Imagine.

As I sat in the back of the ambulance, I empathised with those whose mornings were now in disarray.

It was sudden.

I was merging on a slip-road joining the M1; traffic was moving at its usual rate, perhaps a little better than normal.

Suddenly the car in front of me was too close. I braked. I realised I was too close to avoid collision, hoping for the best, hoping I had enough time to avoid damage,then the air bags deployed, a cloud of smoke, and my emergency lights were flashing.

My car, called emergency services and before I knew what was happening, I was asked, ‘Ambulance, Fire or Police?’

I said, ‘I don’t really know, I am on the M1, there has been a crash,’ I hedged my bets and asked for Fire and Police.

My Apple watch rang the police at the same time and for a surreal moment I was having two conversations about my emergency needs.

I waited.

First a passing patient-transport ambulance stopped, then the fire brigade.

It is hard to calculate which other emergency services were on scene. Within minutes, around thirty men and women in brightly coloured jackets, yellow hats and concerned smiles were around the cars.

I was eventually moved to an ambulance that drove the short distance to the hard shoulder and allowed time to wait and recover.

Funnily, the ambulance crew had to borrow my saturation monitor to check my pulse, as instructed by the more senior paramedic on scene.

The driver of the car in front of me who was not significantly injured either, accompanied me to the ambulance. It later transpired she was a nurse. This NHS kinship helping.

When I told people I was on my way to work as a doctor they found this interesting, ‘I hear you are a doctor,’ a couple of the crew announced as they came to check on me (some found this oddly entertaining), ensuring no cervical tenderness or lower-limb fractures.

‘No, just some musculoskeletal pain. From the seat belt.’

These are the guys who see everything, from the crashes where people walk away to those where no one is breathing.

I imagine they found the situation heartening.

No need for metal cutters or moving equipment.

After an hour and a half, the motorway swept clean, the cars were towed, and the ambulance took me to work.

Colleagues had cancelled my morning visits, just a few patients to contact.

First, I drank my hibiscus tea.

It was then I considered.

What if?

What if I had left the house a little earlier or dropped my daughter at school later? What if the soup I prepared for lunch had not boiled over and had not required me to spend a minute or two mopping up the spill? What if the night before I had slept instead of tossing and turning over an unexpected work worry that had occurred the preceding afternoon, what if, what if.

Another rabbit-hole took me to the hospital like the driver of the second car, spinal board, immobilised; my chest pain analysed, cardiac enzymes elevated, before I know it I am taken to Sheffield for an angiogram.

I saw the sliding doors.

From one moment to the next, it is only at times like this, existential gateways, that you realise the fickle nature of life. Walk left, step right, you are on a trajectory, mostly it is hoped, painless and inconsequential, occasionally stopping you in your tracks, airbags exploding.

As I sat in my car, watching the emergency services appear I reflected on my good fortune to live in the UK where, despite all that is wrong, a multitude were available to rescue me within minutes.

Later, when speaking with the insurance company and then the hire car, I reflected on their good grace, professionalism and empathy.

My mind of course shifted to Israel.

To Nachal Oz, Be’eri.

I imagine survivor flashbacks.

‘What would have happened if?’

I remember the testimony of the Nova survivors, ‘We drove left instead of right, had we headed directly home we would be dead.’

I thought back to Reuma Kedem, berating Gallant. ‘A phone call, to warn them, and they would be alive today.’

And this puts things in perspective.

On Thursday I considered the work event and how bad I felt and then I considered the men, woman and children who have been killed as a direct or indirect effect of Hamas’ actions on October 7^th.

I am not sure whether this comparison is valid, it helped me to compartmentalise and gain insight into the trivialities of my own life.

A wrecked car is bad, as is a bombed house. Death is the end. B’shert.

My dad is not here to discuss the events.

I can only imagine how I would have communicated this to my mum if she was alive. I imagine a mitigated re-telling. A partial narrative, leaving out the extent of the damage to the car or the moments after the airbag when I though the car was on fire and might explode.

At the crash, my wife and brother both simultaneously received text messages with my location and the fact of the crash.

I cannot imagine what they thought.

Modern technology; pinpoint accuracy.

In an alternate world, ‘Look, this is where my brother died.’ I tried not to conjecture although my life is filled with so many notions, possibilities, facts, and counterfactuals, they are hard to dodge.

Twenty years ago, I was run-over by a tram in Sheffield. Similary unanticipated, I was taken to hospital unconscious. I remember my infant son, perplexed, visiting me in the resuscitation bay. That could also have followed a different narrative.

Later in the day, as I discovered that NHS email had swapped to multi-factor authentication (MFA) using an early-generation Microsoft App (locked out of account for three hours), I remained calm.

I considered my predicament, my inability to access my patient communications.

I thought of the tens or perhaps hundreds of thousands of other NHS staff in my situation.

I considered the equivalent time wasted.

The cost of 90 minutes of 30 paramedic and ambulance crew and a blocked motorway.

Like a fractal, it connects, interacts and spirals.

It all adds up.

It is part of a greater cosmic calculation.

I wondered why the police did not speak to me.

They diverted the traffic and moved-on.

No interview, check for hands-free phone. No Breathalyzer. (I wonder about the lead driver, the one who stopped unexpectedly. Was she high? Was she arguing on the phone?) No one will know.

This was my first ever car crash. I didn’t know what to expect.

What if?

No matter. It was fated.

The dye was cast at my birth, the trajectory determined.

Simultaneously assuring, frustrating and frightening.

This part of the reason why, in the science of mindfulness, ‘thought wandering,’ – the theoretical stochastic shift of thoughts, from one possibility to another, ‘What if I had, what if the soup, the traffic lights, the car drop-off, my dog walk, and so on,’ is deemed unhealthy.

We do not need to think about problems or future states.

Our minds are mostly active at the level of the subconscious making all its necessary judgments and calculations, surfacing them just makes us feel bad.

Better to return to stillness.

To focus on the breath and move-on from a world of alternates.

What is, is, what is not is, not.

Or, It is what it is, as they say nowadays,

B’shert in my father’s language.

The Arab on the train

The day before New Year’s Eve, I was travelling to London with my family.

The ten o’clock train to King’s Cross Station.

We were in carriage C, seats 45, 46 and 50.

A table to ourselves with access to the window and wall socket. The quiet coach.

As we approached, we found a family dozing in our place.

‘Ah, these are our seats, is it OK if we…’ All very English and polite.

The man woke his two sleeping children, four and five I estimate, and moved to the adjacent seats whereupon they immediately fell asleep.

I noted the man. His skin colour, the male pattern balding, the carrier bag he shifted from table to table, blue and green with Arabic writing.

He sat next to his wife, headscarf, holding her baby, perhaps a few weeks old.

At the next stop, another family boarded, ‘These are our seats,’ they announced to the family who were forced to move again.

(Why didn’t they just look for the empty rather than occupied seats? I reflected.)

My sense, confirmed by my children, was that our request had been more sensitive than the latter family, more, ‘Oh, look you are accidentally in our place,’ compared to, ‘Get out.’

Do you see where this is heading?

The journey from my home to London is short. 90 minutes.

I sat, chatting with my children, and imagining the world of the man who was now diagonally across from me.

His two sons, wearing identical blue track suit bottoms and tops, a pattern I often see in families who are hurried, pressed financially when the mum buys in bulk; the baby was silent, occasionally mewling.

All that has happened these past three months, I have wondered about my place in the world, in society and on this train.

I considered the family’s movement a microcosm of the fate of the Palestinian People.

‘This is our land, please move,’ then, ‘Move again.’

I know the comparison is flawed; this is what was in my mind.

Yes, my imaginings are harebrained.

I considered the father’s occupation, the family’s situation.

Were they Palestinian? Syrian? Afghan? Refugees? Relocating?

Why, on an early train, did they all sleep for the 90 minutes of the journey? Perhaps they have nowhere to live, constantly on the go. The dad’s Apple Watch was an early generation, what did that indicate?

All these questions never answered.

The family who replaced them, consisted of two women, I imagine early 30’s and two girls, six or seven.

The women talked for 90 minutes. Those conversations that are impossible to unhear, an hour and a half of their life’s trivialities, their party experiences and relationship intrigues.

For a time, I listened to white noise and played with my phone.

On Wednesday I attended a meeting of my organisation’s BAME network.

The chair had invited me following a discussion in December where I expressed my frustration at Judaism being omitted from a Trust document relating to world religions and their death practices; a guide intended for staff, for them to support bereaved families.

‘We don’t have many Jewish patients,’ the author explained. I left it there; I didn’t ask how many Jains, Zoroastrians or Bahá’í we employ or support.

It began as expected.

‘Oh, hi Rod, are you sure you are in the right meeting?’ The corollary being, this is the BAME group, and you aren’t one of us.

‘No, I’m in the right place.’

Some of the discussion related to the purpose of the network (which has struggled to gain traction/membership). ‘What is the point of the network?’ I asked, ‘Is it to support BAME people? Is it to facilitate diversity and inclusion? Is it to encourage our overseas employees to feel more welcome?’

All of these and more.

We then discussed who or what is BAME.

For readers outside the UK who might not be familiar with this acronym, it stands-for, ‘Black, Asian and minority ethnic,’ it is the gamut of not-white although as we know, the world is more complicated than this.

Are you Asian if your grandma is from Madras and the rest of your family are Norwegian? What about your mum or your great-grandfather? What proportion gives you an ‘in’?

Is Judaism an ethnicity? It is a minority? Are either adequate?

We know from recent events both in Israel and at US and UK universities that Jews, in the eyes of some both don’t count, and are white.

The minutiae of Jews counting and not necessarily aligning with a skin-colour or race paradigm is an irrelevance.

My daughter is studying Camus.

Last week, she and her brother were discussing L’étranger – the Outsider or the Stranger, depending on your translation.

In the novel, the hero, Meursault kills a man, ‘The Arab’.

Like my eponymous train traveller, this is a man yet he represents a group, he is the intersection between the individualistic West and the collectivist East.

I see this in the figures of the dead.

I have come to know the names of many of those murdered at the events in the South of Israel on October 7. The ten or twenty thousand Palestinians killed in bombings remain anonymous.

‘64 members of my family were killed in a bombing,’ I heard on the radio.

That number is too big. It defies the limits of interpersonal understanding.

There is such a difference between people and person.

The killing of an individual versus the death of a group.

It was supposedly Stalin who said, ‘One death is a tragedy, a million a statistic.’

Who am I?

Am I a statistic or an individual?

The reality is that we are all both.

My lifelong fight against the translation of statistical methodologies to the practice of medicine, ‘Take this tablet, Evidence Based Medicine suggests that your will live six months longer.’

(Omitting that six months is an average, a combination of meta-analyses, the fate averaged over the existences of a hundred thousand similar middle-aged white men.)

You are you and you are you.

That grammatically tenuous sentence is accurate.

Our society is capable of investing millions in the fate of one old man yet equally able to ignore the fates of thousands.

We are taken where the media leads us.

If the Tik Tok Yellow Brick Road says ‘good’ we believe the hype.

Unquestioning, we don’t consider the limitations of language or computer algorithms.

This has been circular.

Part of me remains on the train.

In another world I talk to the man, Abed? Shahid? Hafiz? I find a commonality, we bond, we become friends, share hopes and fears, and live happily ever after.

The reality is disconnected.

It is Groundhog Day, it is October 7, it is Climate Crisis and cancer, start then start again.

Dizzying, the Dervish spins mindful and mindless.

Two places at once.

Up and down.

Schrödinger’s Cat mewling its last.

‘Wake up Rod, you are dreaming.’

Poll of polls and Next Generation Christmastime activists

Yesterday, our friends came to spend some pre-Christmas time with us. We have known them since our children were little and we don’t see them enough. Vegan, vegetarian, and meat lasagne was served. Something for all tastes.

My children like those of our friend are Gen Zer’s, born between 1990 and 2010.

They aren’t like us.

When I say ‘us’, I refer to my readership who I imagine are not-millennials, however that is already a false assumption as my daughter is a regular and my son dips-in from time to time.

Millennials aren’t meant to read. Their mode of interacting with the world, is Tik Tok, or so I am informed.

In my day, let’s say, the late 90’s, textbooks were a thing – I even have some on the shelves in my home, mostly anatomy (1x acquired during a Dundee library sit-in), microbiology, and some from my time at Tali School in Hod Hasharon.

Now, if you are young at university, books are not a fundamental, or, if they are, they will be browsed online.

Sure, if you are studying humanities, the text of Anna Karenina will have remained consistent, everything else, the related theory and analysis will have altered since Tolstoy notated his Cyrillic.

My point is that the young of today have altered in ways that are hard for some of us oldies to comprehend, particularly as the rate of change is increasing.

The reason for my picking on the young people, follows-on from the Podcast I mentioned yesterday; the one in which Amanda and Haviv discussed recent polls relating to Israel and Gaza. You know, 76.6 per cent of older Israelis or, 23 per cent of Ivy League students…, that kind of thing. And, if you read what I wrote, you will know that ascribing reality to numbers is not necessarily valid.

Nevertheless, as I have suggested, younger people are different.

For me, the biggest aspect relates to their attitudes towards the future (they have proportionately more skin in that game than I).

When I was growing up, the global anxiety related to an intercontinental nuclear war >MAD<; America and the USSR mutually destroying humanity. (Then we had AIDS, then Islamic Fundamentalism, the Millennium Bug, Covid.)

Today, once you have accepted that the fanatics on the religious Right and Left are on the fringe, it is apparent that the Climate Crisis is a more sobering reality than a nuke dropping or a terrorist on Oxford Street.

We see it, we feel it.

The hedgehogs that stagger around, drunk from wintertime heat at the bottom of my garden are one example. Tulips in January, migratory bird dysphoria. It is all written, it is all apparent.

Rising sea levels and coruscating icebergs, are now.

‘Don’t worry, the Gulf Stream will soon collapse,’ my son advised yesterday as we discussed the balmy December weather.

In the language of Ronald Reagan, the bombs are falling.

Putting this to one side, we have the economic divide between the young and the Boomers, the latter celebrating the yield of their early-retirements, pensions, and paid-off mortgages in the face of student debt and the impossibility of climbing the property ladder.

And we wonder why, those same young demand the end of Israel or more specifically Netanyahu, support the Palestinian cause, overlook the brutality of Hamas, whether directed at Jews, Bedouin, people of colour or any other group. The young, tattooed, pierced or not, who shout about rivers to seas without understanding the implication, who ‘like’ untrammelled by a deeper understanding or consequence of their actions.

It is difficult to unravel. It is a knotty knot, you might say. A tangled web. Choose your metaphor, they all work.

Let’s reroute.

A brief detour.

Earlier, I mentioned the lasagne.

I aspire to eat a vegan diet.

This means, I avoid animal products – milk, cream, butter, cheese, beef, chicken, herring and salmon.

I stopped buying them around a year ago.

I self-identify as an environmental vegan.

I know my children, ever alert to the nuances of language (who don’t Tik Tok, thank goodness) will challenge this statement, ‘What about the honey (abused bees)? And the Challah (eggs)?’

OK I’ll take hypocrite as a denominator; I can cope.

My environmental veganism is not entirely allayed with cruelty against animals, although I am a friend of foxes, badgers and stand as an anti-vivisectionist. I am and have never been a believer in factory farming, penned-in hens, indoor cattle, and electro-executed pigs, nevertheless, we, that is humans, evolved to eat all sorts – insects, grains, and goats, we are, in our hunter-gatherer origins omnivores.

My behaviour relates to an aspiration to minimise my environmental impact. This was demonstrated a couple of years ago when my children encouraged then celebrated my purchase of an electric car.

We avoid turning-up the central heating, we recycle. We do our best to toe-the-line when it comes to conspicuous or other forms of consumption.

And with this, the approach to predominantly buying non-animal products. I believe in doing so, I am boosting the vegan economy. For every Beyond Burger or No-Mo chocolate bar I buy, I am increasing the market share of the non-meat industry, infinitesimally diminishing deforestation.

For every visit that I don’t make to a petrol pump I am increasing investment in alternative sources of energy. That kind of thing.

It is also good for my physical wellbeing; vegans are healthier in general than the average population. They don’t necessarily live longer but avoid some forms of the cerebrovascular disease and cancer. I avoid milk and Gruyère to not have to make an appointment with my family doctor.

What I find interesting is that those young, for all their obsession with human rights, gender and race equality often fall short.

Whether this relates to them walking around in t-shirts with the central heating turned-up ‘high’ (fossil fuels), eating meat, milk and chocolate (climate catastrophe, animal suffering) or driving their cars (fossil fuels – electric cars are too expensive for them.)

It is all a confusion.

Difficult to know where to step.

The present and the future are fickle.

We dance like Cottingley Fairies hoping for a better tomorrow.

I wrote a few weeks ago about my move, not so much to the Right, but perhaps towards a better understanding of that position, given, as one small example, it has been those to the Right of Centre internationally who have supported Israel more than those self-identifying with the Left (identity politics aside).

It has helped me gain perspective; it has enabled me to humanise the ‘other’ – allowing them to shift from anonymous ‘Tory’ (Republican) to person who holds beliefs that overlap with my own.

It is all too easy to compartmentalise. ‘They are good, you are bad,’ ‘I am Catholic/Celtic, you are a Protestant/Rangers,’ ‘Black, white,’ ‘Gay, straight.’

And yet, this appears to be an instinct.

Shoot from the hip and ask questions later.

We know that life is more nuanced.

There is always more than nought and cross, on or off.

We enjoy certainty.

Instability does not comfort.

Nailing our colours to the mast is an inherent part of our evolutionary makeup despite it being frequently maladaptive.

We cannot help ourselves.

Nietzsche suggested we are Human all too human.

120 years after he died, I tend to agree.

Where does this leave us?

Merry Christmas you might say, if you are living in the Christian world.

Damned colonisers if you are anti-Israel.

What about Jesus? The Galilean Jew.

Oh, that guy, he never existed, never was.

What is your take on Christianity?

It’s a sham. A Constantine invention. Go read your history books.

Sorry, I don’t access books, they are far too last century.

Santa? Elves?

Nope.

Go figure.

When can I unwrap my presents?

Know your numbers. You are you, not they or them. Individualism in a time of statistics.

Years ago, just after I had joined my surgery as a partner, I wrote a series of blogs for our Facebook page.

One related to the importance of knowing your numbers.

Specifically, blood pressure.

Since that time, the world has changed. Many own smartwatches, we have had Covid where at the very least heart rate and oxygen saturations became part of the lingua franca of those interested in their physical health or wellbeing.

And now, at the end of 2023, where are we?

Yesterday, I visited one of my patients at home. She lives with her husband in a small tidy mid-terrace house. My patient struggles with her breathing and mobility, she has postural hypotension. This latter, a condition related to changes in blood pressure when moving from lying or sitting to standing which can result in dizziness, falls or collapse.

Her husband has been assiduously recording her blood pressure, taken whilst lying then standing, which he emails me every couple of weeks.

As we talked, I looked across at their dining room table; an orderly arrangement of blood pressure cuff, oxygen saturation meter and notepad sat alongside boxes of medicines.

My patient knows her numbers.

I never asked whether her husband checks his own blood pressure.

My mum, in the last twenty years of her life suffered with epilepsy (her first memorable generalised seizure the night of my cousin’s wedding, a year before I entered medical school.)

For the next 15 or so years, until his own death, my dad religiously recorded every one of her seizures on the calendar, kept on a wall in their kitchen, usually with an ‘X’ to retain a degree of confidentiality I imagine, for any visitors or guests.

There is something fascinating about the way in which some older men, who for most of their lives have taken the role of ‘looked after’ by their wives, switch to become carers.

For some, like my patient’s husband, it is a natural transition, for others a struggle.

My dad found it hard at times.

Why this diversion into the past?

It is the documentation of life which I find interesting.

Sometimes I ask relatives or carers to reduce the frequency of the measurements – they (usually men) become BP-happy, checking once or twice daily recordings, day after day – this is excessive; a medicalisation of life.

Our blood pressure is interesting.

When raised it is a potential and silent killer, either slowly eroding your heart, kidneys, and brain with reduction in function or suddenly with stroke or heart attack.

Do you know your numbers?

When did you last check your own blood pressure?

I review my own periodically and it runs-true, in the region of 130/70 which is adequate. I don’t have a fantastic family history.

Last week (as a patient), I attended a clinic at one of our local hospitals.

It was part of a cardiac assessment to determine whether I have inherited a cardiac abnormality that affects my brother. A form of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, it is the causative agent behind some otherwise healthy young people dying suddenly from cardiac arrest.

To save your angst, I can confirm that my heart is healthy, left ventricle and general function are spot on.

As I arrived early, having rushed a ward-round then Christmas present giving followed by some work-related calls I arrived at the department flustered.

This was where I had worked over 20 years before as a junior doctor.

Returning was overwhelming.

A doctor arriving somewhere as a patient is a stressor.

My blood pressure was up which the nurse thoughtfully accepted and repeated a little later after it had time to settle.

Blood pressure goes up and down through the day. We call this diurnal variation. It has to do with a rise in the morning, probably to give our ancestors extra oomph to hunt rabbits and drops through the day, appropriately in time for bed.

There is an entire science of blood pressure monitoring, where the number are analysed for peaks, troughs, and timings.

One of my favourite medical terminologies is ‘reverse non-dipper’ which is the situation of blood pressure rising instead of falling at bedtime, a particularly sinister sign.

Anyway.

I began this blog querying whether you know your numbers.

The idea came from listening to this morning’s podcast, What Matters Now with Amanda Borschel-Dan and Haviv Rettig Gur discussing the results of recent polls conducted in Israel, the West Bank, Gaza, and America.

The numbers demonstrated the percentage support for or against the war, the ideological or other opposition to a Hamas-led future for the Palestinians and other questions relating to Antisemitism, foreign aid, and the existence or not of War Crimes in the conflict.

It was all numbers. 64 per cent this, 21, that.

I have long been a number cynic.

Even, dare I say of blood pressure.

I had better explain before anyone reports me to the General Medical Council.

I used to, back in the day, reference the old Guinness advert which aired in the UK in the late 90’s. It quoted, 88.2% of statistics are made-up.

I used to relate this to medical students, usually inventing my own stat.

The idea wasn’t to make them dismissive of study results, more to provide them with a degree of scepticism when considering absolutes.

‘New drug, Xylophone101 cures 32 per cent of people,’ for example.

The caution being, what does it cure and what does ‘cure’ mean? What are the complications or side effects of the treatment? What about the other 68% who are not ‘cured’ – are they worse-off? And, the sine qua non of person-centred medicine, does it matter on an individual basis?

Statistics help inform, they do not offer certainty to the person you are treating.

This all shifts into concepts such as ‘numbers needed to treat’ and ‘numbers needed to harm’ which relate to the respective patients who must either unnecessarily or appropriately receive a tablet or medicine for them to benefit, as an example, to prevent one heart attack, 100 people might need to take a daily Aspirin for 10 years in certain situations (these are my zombie statistics, for illustration only).

If 30 of these people, taking Aspirin for 10 years develop stomach ulcers and 2 of them die as a consequence, the net risk might be considered dubious, if you (the doctor) take into account other individual patient variables such as a person’s history of ulcers, other medicines taken, whether they smoke, drink alcohol and so on, you enter a world of shady data which is within every clinical decision.

For the most this is interesting and keeps me busy.

On the Podcast Amanda and Haviv discussed the numbers, taking what I felt to be an open an honest approach to the results considering the perspective of the young Palestinian living in Jenin versus the old New York GOP supporter.

All of this is fascinating although it only adds flavour to our perceptions, like grains of salt, it can enhance or overwhelm.

Over the past two and a half months, 78 days, since October 7^th, my head has been spinning with facts, figures, impressions, and thoughts.

This week on my way to my hospital appointment, I drove past a shop displaying a ‘Free Palestine’ sign with three or four flags in the window.

Last night someone sent me photos of Palestinian flags atop lampposts in Sheffield. These, raise my blood pressure. Sending me into an Almondemotion, my primitive-lizard brain (amygdala) on alert for further threats.

I didn’t explain to the nurse that my elevated blood pressure likely was affected not only by my arrival at the clinic but also the waiting in traffic beside the Palestinian flags.

‘What should you care?’ You might ask, well, I do. It is hard at times to control your emotions, particularly in traffic.

I wonder, had I driven along and seen an Israeli flag, whether that would have had a similar or inverse effect on my blood pressure?

(Rod, your blood pressure is only 80/40, are you OK? ‘Yes, sure,’ I dreamily reply, ‘I just saw a vision of Zion.)

I haven’t seen any Stars of David recently.

My suspicion is that, were I to fly a flag in my garden it would attract unwanted attention, perhaps a rock. That however is conjecture and based upon my own fluctuating prejudices.

It appears from recent polls that within the West Bank, since 10/7, support for Hamas has increased significantly as has a belief in the necessity of armed struggle against Israel, this in contrast to the results of those living in Gaza.

I can only imagine the citizens in Ramallah perhaps in the past two months have spent more time on Tik Tok than their Gazan peers (1.3 billion Chinese people exposed to Antisemitic tropes, imagine the implications, recently suggested Jason Harris of the Jew Oughta Know Podcast).

Who knows?

I am biased by my own perceptions, influenced by my upbringing, race, heritage, nationality, and life experiences.

Another trope I use in my lectures, mostly in relating to those living with dementia is, ‘If you have met one person with dementia, you have met one person with dementia,’ this means, don’t take your one-off experience as a generalisation. Everyone is unique. There is no such thing as a ‘dementia patient’ only ‘Enid, 88, retired lecturer, living with dementia,’ just as there is only one Jibril, 41-year-old doctor, Jericho resident or Efrat, 34, structural engineer, living in Haifa.

We are so easily drawn-into collective accounting, it is one of the biggest flaws of being human.

Forget humans, think people, no, think person.

I am me; you are you; your thoughts, feelings, emotions, and ideas are particular to you and warrant appropriate consideration, not diminishment through a collective interpretation of the actions of ‘people’ – take me as I am and I will take you, that way we can talk, discuss, hope, collaborate, and imagine a future of co-existence.

In the Bleak Midwinter

That is what it feels like today.

Almost at the Earth’s halfway point, the shortest day on the horizon and darkest before the dawn to anoint another cliché.

This morning I listened to Donniel and Yossi discussing the killing of the three escaped hostages Alon, Samar and Yotam.

Before that, a different Hartman Podcast with Yehuda Kurtzer talking with Cochav Elkayam-Levy about the newly created Israel’s Civil Commission on October 7 Crimes by Hamas Against Women and Children.

What are we, 75 days?

It is unimaginable.

I saw the pictures this morning of two more hostages, Gadi Mozes and Elad Katzir, their images released by Islamic Jihad.

The world has gone crazy.

Is the level beyond this sanity?

Yes, the world was mad beforehand – our promotion of capitalism and profit above humanity, our sacrifice of the environment over the ability to drive a car from A to B.

It hit home yesterday as we visited the Yorkshire Wildlife Park. Home to some endangered and other less so animals.

The lemurs and the rhinos stayed indoors, out of the cold; the cheetahs, polar bears and the biturongs were on display, their fur helping their geographic discombobulation.

Asian Biturong = bear-cat, Photo by Rod.

We can’t stop ourselves. Whether it is tiger bone, rhino horn or blood diamonds.

This morning I also thought of Richard Feynman.

My kids know who is from watching repeat episodes of The Big Bang Theory. I, at their age voraciously read his books, the most prominent being, What Do You Care What Other People Think? (almost as good as Surely You’re Joking, Mr Feynman). The former sounding like a self-help book, the latter an expression of disbelief by an Oxford don at Feynman’s 1950’s unorthodoxy. (He may have forgotten his hat or a tie to a formal event).

A world in spin.

Chaos.

A conflagration.

Today, in the UK, Junior Doctors are striking.

They want more money.

I think they are daft as not only are they jeopardising patient care and further pushing the NHS towards its collapse, but they are also doing this nowhere near an election which is the only currency a government understands. They are threatening the NHS and those responsible are calling for them to bring it on as the longer the waiting lists the greater the value of the private health companies, they either own or support as shareholders or directors.

All at a time when it isn’t money that counts, rather fairness and equity. A levelling out of society would do everyone good and that is not happening.

In another part of my life, I am three quarters through Terry Hayes’ book The Year of the Locust. At the part where Ripley the protagonist, denied access spy, having travelled 24 years into the future is reunited with his wife Rebecca in an apocalyptic America, overwhelmed by mutated human ‘ridgebacks.’

It can be difficult to determine what is real and what is fantasy.

In another book I am reading Mishka Ben-David’s story of a Mossad agent in St Petersburg. I’ve just started and will therefore give the plot time to reveal.

I can’t imagine what it is like growing up today.

My son recently expressed his position as an outsider. My daughter is reading L’etranger for her schoolwork. Last week we discussed Kafka’s The Trial.

My dog is wearing a Christmas Jumper.

Perhaps this is part of the plan.

Insanity before the fall.

I tried to rationalise the behaviour of my son’s friends at his university, those perhaps wearing Keffiyeh or Palestinian colours (not that there is anything wrong with that although as the Harvard professor said, everything is context.)

When people stop believing in God the do not believe in nothing, they believe in anything, so supposedly said the English Philosopher, GK Chesterton.

It makes you think.

It makes you wonder, what next?

Mindfulness is the discipline of being in the moment. Focusing either on the breath, a mantra, or the progressive relaxation of the body.

It seemed to be all the rage a few years ago (it was the focus of my master’s thesis in 2015). Yet, many are living through the failure of that resolution.

I am sure just as many have succeeded in inching their way towards enlightenment, as the storm blows from Yemen, Lebanon, or Iran.

It is mixed blessing of unreality.

A fortnight ago the British Poet, Benjamin Zephaniah died from complications related to a brain tumour. A vegan and a champion of refugees, the disadvantaged, and the environment that wasn’t what he deserved, nevertheless that’s what happened.

I wonder what next.

Perhaps wonder has lost its sheen.

We should instead focus on the moment.

I feel John Lennon pulling me.

Imagine no possession, it isn’t hard to do.

Imagine a return of the hostages.

Imagine an undoing of the war and the tragedies, the pain the suffering the horror.

Imagine a blank space where people come together and putting aside their historical differences to work on a shared humanity.

We all feel pain, we all feel sorrow.

Yesterday I finished reading Dara Horn’s The World to Come, which is a one-off, a unique narrative I highly recommend. The final chapter describes the experiences of an unborn baby as he experiences the gamut of human experience as foretold in the Zohar.

A child is born with all human knowledge which is lost with their first breath.

The unborn in Dara’s novel tastes of the richness of culture and education, ‘all the heavenly glory,’ as Bruce Lee said.

And that for me is enough for the moment.

I’ll remain in my fictive world.

I’ll hope for peace.

I will even support the striking doctors for they are well intentioned.

Tomorrow is another day.

Springtime soon.

It was cold, fairly cold.

I was surprised last week when I learned one of my patients had been admitted to hospital with hypothermia.

We live in the North of England which whilst not as balmy as Chelsea isn’t that cold.

And yet, his body temperature had dropped.

Slurring his words

He was disorientated.

In hospital they ignored his temperature and focused on a stroke,

Determined to prove the pathway correct.

(The stroke pathway is an NHS mandated treatment plan that gives you fantastic support for your stroke, if, you have had a stroke. If you haven’t had a stroke and merely hypothermia the outcomes are equivocal.)

My patient survived and returned home after a week on noisy hospital wards which at least were not cold.

As I let myself in his house, I was surprised to see a heater in the hallway and another in his living room as he, let’s call him Werther was sitting in his habitual spot.

He looked well although a stubble on his chin betrayed a slipping of standards.

Shaken-up from his time ‘inside’ but back to normal, mobile with his walker and compos mentis.

I tried to understand events (that were beyond the illogicality of his discharge letter).

Werther hates hospitals.

It later transpired that he had refused the first ambulance, only after his family managed to convince him did he accept a second transport.

Werther is a refined, quiet man who I have known for the past five years, he is always welcoming and whilst consistently surprised at my arrival he appears mostly glad to have my company.

Last night I watched, with my son and daughter the film Love Actually.

Released in 2003 it seems a very long time ago.

Am I being sentimental when I consider the early 2000’s as good times?

Yes, my life today is better in a multitude of ways than then, yet, before the GFC – the Global Financial Crisis, Covid, Ukraine and October the 7^th, the world seemed more hopeful.

I don’t remember issues with pensioners paying for heating.

In my geriatrician head, I divide older people into three groups:

Those who don’t have the money for heating and sit atop their electric single-bar heaters inside frigid houses.
Those who have the money for heating but don’t want to spend it and sit atop their electric single-bar heaters inside frigid houses.
Those who have the money, and their central heating is ramped-up to tropical.

There doesn’t seem to be an in between.

(Those without money and without even a single bar heater tend not to survive to be older.)

As a little boy

I have a memory of sitting in an armchair in our home in Glasgow,

Legs across the arms of the chair, my stockinged feet on the white radiator.

I remember it was sometimes so very hot I couldn’t keep my feet in one place, instead forcing them to dance, in a sideways motion.

I was about ten when I worked-out the utility of the central heating thermostat.

I was a privileged child.

My daughter, 17 only discovered this last week.

Another memory,

When I borrowed a little torch from the religious boy at school. We used to meet in the Jewish Class (where we went to hang-out with Mrs Gamzu, jokingly called Gamzu-ological) when the other children (the blonde-haired Scottish youth) were singing their Presbyterian hymns.

I’ll call him Shmuel, which may or may not have been his name.

I took his torch home. I was eight or nine years old and tried to charge the torch as he had instructed, by leaving it on the radiator.

Two hours later it had melted.

Remembering the associated anxiety of having to find the money to pay him back for his borrowed torch stays with me to this day.

In Iceland a volcano in the Reykjanes peninsula has erupted.

Local people have evacuated. Critical thermo-electric energy infrastructure is threatened, I wonder how they stay warm.

This February I spent a week in Reykjavik. It was cold.

I recall running along the seashore, lumps of ice coating the rocks. I later bought a yellow jacket.

And Sunday

I swam through the lake at Manvers.

The water was five degrees.

Thankfully my double hat and gloves, bootees and winter wetsuit protected me. I still couldn’t feel my feet as I left the water, 800m and half an hour later.

Some of my fellow club members took the dip in skins, that is, without any form of protection beyond Speedoes and a woolly hat.

I doff my cap to them.

We humans thermoregulate.

Able to cope better at extremes of low temperature than high.

We can sweat and sit in the shade although eventually the heat will get you.

In the cold we layer-up and stay warm.

When asked which was tougher, the famous English (&frost-bitten &heart attacked) explorer and ultra-marathoner, Ranulph Fiennes advised it was the heat that kills you.

Greta, the irony of us heading towards an over-heating planet.

This winter has been wetter and milder than the one before and the one before and so on until perhaps the Neoproterozoic, 800 million years ago.

We stand on the brink.

We guzzle gas at the pumps.

Our cars are Green but their manufacture black.

We are lost souls.

Left and Right united

It is a strange fall-out of the events of 7 October

That my perceptions have altered.

Yes, the whole world has changed

and that day

Which will live like 9/11 and 12/7 in infamy

has also wrought

A shift in my mind.

I had previously sat

Not to the extreme left,

but far from the centre.

As a boy I remember my brother saying,

‘So, you’re a communist!’

This was before I knew the meaning or significance of the word,

It was simply that I could not see the reason behind much of the way of things,

Principally difference.

The diversion from individuality to a collectivist sense that as there is enough to go around, we should all settle for enough rather than a minority too much and the remainder barely a thing. (A foreshadowing of the 1% concept.)

Time has changed me.

I’ve not become a Capitalist.

Money hasn’t been the driving force of my life although I have been fortunate, and a good career and professional life has taken me away from aspiring to a Trabant.

And yet, my politics have remained Left.

Even when Corbyn, on the ascendant allowed Antisemitism to run wild in the party,

I stood with him,

Disbelieving the allegations.

Yes, I was proven wrong,

I had misinterpreted the dialectic which he championed.

Moving onwards, I have seen over the past two months the positions of world leaders as they either have supported or attacked Israel.

Justified criticism of Israel is OK. Empathy with the Palestinian People is OK.

Support for Hamas is not. Ripping-down posters of kidnapped children is not.

What I have seen, during this time has been a divergence,

People I saw as allies have veered away into a righteous indignity at Israel’s actions and those, I never considered to share any of my values have perceived the urgency of supporting the Jewish State.

And this is perhaps the revelation.

I had, to a greater or lesser extent been an absolutist.

Those on the left, the people supporting the greater good, the poor, the disadvantaged, I gave an ear, and those on the right, the Conservatives, the status quo-nicks, the everyone for themselves brigade were not worth considering.

And now all that has been disrupted.

I see good in those I previously criticised and failure in those I supported.

Topsy turvy.

A turning upside down of the world ‘me-ha-pecha’ (מהפכה) is the word in Hebrew.

And with this I have perhaps grown, matured, my perceptions have broadened and my view of the world more nuanced than on October the 6^th.

Events shape us, even when we would prefer to stay the same, it is life, it is revolution. That day our world changed forever.

Trigger warning

The film contains images which some viewers may find distressing.

The next scene contains flashing lights.

These are the triggers.

I have my own.

It’s a face that pops-up on Facebook.

Someone I don’t want to befriend and never will although is a friend of a contact or two.

And you know, friend on FB isn’t really friend,

Social media has redefined friendship,

Which in the 21^st century means anything from ‘brother’ to acquaintance of acquaintance to random person who caught me on the off chance.

Anyway,

That guy is a trigger for me, he brings back bad memories, only, there is no warning.

Life doesn’t come with trigger warnings.

Some people may want to not be peacefully asleep in their beds if they don’t want to be killed.

Perhaps that is too brutal.

I also consider what constitutes a trigger and what does not.

Mostly when I watch these clips, often of war zones or scenes of other calamities I am not shocked.

More often, in my experience anyway, it is not watching that is worse –

‘What unimaginable horrors might be behind this triangle?’

I am fortunate to not experience PTSD or post-trauma as they call it on Israeli radio.

I gather there are thousands on both sides of the divide who will move-on from this conflict with deep psychological scars.

I remember the poem by Saul Tschernichovsky I learned in school, in Hebrew, ‘Ha Talush’ which translates as ‘The Torn’ as in a page that has been ripped from a book and is now adrift; the segment which is forever disconnected and no matter the skill with which attempts are made to put it ‘back together again’ will forever be altered.

A welt, a wheal. Tattooed on the souls of survivors.

And perhaps,

I should be more sensitive to these warnings, thinking less of myself and the more on the happenstance of others.

As to whether there should be more, similar alerts I don’t know.

Life is unexpected.

We accrue resilience through experience.

Sometimes that experience is overwhelming.

Darkness, all around. Death equivalence.

In these days of darkness, I struggle to sleep.

It’s just after two.

Tonight, I woke from a dream.

A newly constructed beach in Israel,

Millions had been spent

On the creation of an artificial atoll,

To extend the space for people

To avoid summer over-crowding.

And then, I think about death.

For me, death and dying are familiar,

As a doctor caring for the old and ageing,

It is a frequent sequel of my care,

More specifically

To use a cliché,

Allowing, nature to take its course.

A natural death

Free from the interfering hands of intensive care doctors and nurses,

Disconnected from oxygen tubing and drip counters.

Last week, one of my old men died.

I included him in a blog last year.

He of the dog, Rover.

In his final years I managed to team him up with a small pack who lived alongside him at the old age home. They even, on occasion accompanied him to hospital.

When, after his death, I spoke with his family, ‘It was a blessing,’ I was told, ‘he wasn’t the man he used to be.’

The slow but steady disintegration that is dementia had ground him down, smooth like a pebble.

And then,

I am troubled and reflect on the children and the young and the old killed in Gaza and Israel.

In yesterday’s blog I discussed the 10 soldiers lost in one day during fighting in Gaza.

In my, imagination there are flashes of the dead babies, displayed, shrouded in white, for the camera.

I think of Pallywood and the bitterness that is exchanged, one saying the other’s trauma is not real, the claims and counter claims.

And then the thoughts about life’s duration, its value.

The significance of the death of a new or still born alongside the binary multiplication of ages, one year old, then two, four, eight, 16, 32, 64.

Using this calculus, you become an old person very quickly.

Is it better to die before your life has been fully lived, before the number of attachments you have established has formed or later, once you have had a good innings, as they say?

The death of a 19-year-old soldier who likely still lives with his parents, perhaps a girlfriend, without children, only siblings and grandparents left behind versus a man in their fifties who has lived his life, with even grandchildren he has met. In which case is the legacy more tragic?

This thought has been haunting me for days.

In my own world it is far away, and yet, it is played-out daily in Gaza and other war zones.

What is the sounds of one hand clapping? Says the koan.

What is the pain of a child dying, unknown and unheard, in a faraway land?

As a young doctor I toyed briefly with a career in paediatrics. I couldn’t bear the notion of supporting suffering children. Better the old folk who have lived their lives.

Last night I watched the Israeli chat show ‘Eretz Nehederet.’ In one of the sketches, a woman, dancing on stage played the part of a released hostage, one of the grandmothers.

I understand the importance to some of their grandma being freed, it is an irony when we know that children and young women remain in captivity.

In a mathematical world we are drawn to equivalence.

‘100 of their citizens were killed, that is half the tragedy of the 200 on the other side,’ as if, such calculations can ever add-up, a cloud of suffering, ineffable.

None of this is good for me or my mental health, yet what is the alternative? Switch off and turn away? If I do, the fighting will continue, I will become one of the uninformed.

Last night I briefly watched, in-between channel-hopping, Strictly Come Dancing. The stars, skin-deep in makeup, their fixed grins and fascinated expressions stopped me for a moment.

Angela Ripon, in frilly skirt and toned legs, fixed, focused, and smiling.

A world apart.

Another world.

We live in monads.

Individual reality boxes.

That on occasion intersect.

Spontaneous illogicality and the three president’s double-speak.

I had a plan.

It was one of those ideas that you are sometimes ashamed to confess.

It followed last week’s ideas about a return to normality.

I had scheduled an old-school blog,

Something that I might have written before October 7,

I was thinking about work and medicine and healthcare leadership,

Subjects I have not touched in over two months,

And this,

Call it hubris if you like.

Was superseded by the news first of the ten soldiers killed fighting in Gaza then the deaths of the three Israeli hostages who were killed by Israeli troops yesterday.

The mess becomes a morass becomes an ever-expanding nightmare.

Reality is remote.

Far away,

Capable of more obscurity than our imagination.

I see this every day in my work.

Patients act in ways that defy my every expectation, both for the good and the bad – those I anticipate will die live for year after year, those I am confident are solid, robust, pass overnight.

I couldn’t have imagined the news.

In the world of Myers Briggs, the personality profile people, there are those who plan ahead, who like preparation and order – they like to know where they stand now and in a years’ time; they will book their summer holiday in September and wrap their Christmas or Channukah presents in the same month, these, in the language of Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) are the ‘Perceivers’ (denoted as P) and, the others (me) who are equally confident that no plan will stand the test of time, who prefer to leave decisions until the last minute; my summer holiday is booked a week before the trip, my presents still not purchased, I am an ‘iNtuiter’ (N).

The underlying theory isn’t important – some consider it nonsense, others are passionate advocates; me, I stand in the middle, there are interesting components that I have discussed previously.

Who expected 10/7? Who could have anticipated the global response?

In parts of Europe, US and Asia, the reaction was shock, stunned disbelief (in some areas similar to the incredulity demonstrated in relation to the Holocaust – that it was so unimaginably bad, it could not have happened) (See here) – nowadays, this is called fake news and the onus is on the victim to prove their injury.

In other places, the informed west, there were celebrations.

It did not surprise me that some in Turkey, Syria or Iran celebrated the deaths of the Israelis (and everyone else unfortunate to find themselves on the scene – Indians, Thais, Philippines, Germans, French, Americans), it was the celebration in the more enlightened areas, by the Chicago Chapter of Black Lives Matter or the University of Columbia.

And so it goes on.

Last week, I watched aghast at the testimony of the three American University presidents wriggling though a senate interrogation, their determination that the meaning of genocide depends upon context.

This led to a riot of creativity across social media questioning which other absolutes could be dependent upon context.

‘Is kidnapping wrong?’ Well, it depends on the context.

‘Was Hitler wrong?’ Context.

‘Is the planet warming?’ Yes.

‘Do Black Lives Matter?’ Yes.

You get the idea.

Were the president’s responses expected? No? Could they have been anticipated? Maybe.

It’s a nonsense and we all know it.

It is this that overlapped with yesterday’s Unholy Podcast with Ronit Levi and Jonathan Freedland.

Their guest speaker, Yascha Mounk, a German-US academic described the system at play on US campuses (and spreading) of the four cornerstones of intellectual narrative that have led to this situation.

He described them as:

1. Life is a struggle of White against Black (no matter the whiteness or blackness, you are allowed to self-identify as an individual, as a group ‘we’ that is the community will determine) (i.e. Jews, Israelis are White, Palestinians, Arabs are Black).

2. The world is understood through a lens of Colonisers and Colonists – you are either indigenous or you came along later, you are either marginalised or dominant. (Israelis are the colonisers despite their Middle Eastern origins, despite history, the Palestinians are the colonised despite their self-rule in Gaza).

3. A redefinition of racism – beyond, ‘I will not let you drink from my water fountain,’ to a more nuanced form of structural discrimination – institutions in the US and the UK are racist as they do not proactively address the inequalities of access between the majority (white middle-class) and others.

4. Intersectionality – the overlap of disadvantage, I campaign for the environment, and I am a neurodivergent woman, I, by association support Hamas (who might I be?)

I am no social scientist.

I’m not a scientist at all and I have written these words with trepidation, afraid I might have misinterpreted, mis-stepped or mis-spoken.

Part of Yascha’s narrative is the reason these presidents and may others like them, particularly those who identify with ‘The Left’ take these positions relates to their desire to avoid conflict.

He explains using an example – in the US, those from Latin America refer to themselves as Latinas and Latinos. In American academia, these people are Latinx. This is a neologism created in the social science lab aimed at de-objectification.

(I note that ‘Latinx’ is already part of my Word dictionary).

Why?

Well, writing Latinx will make people shake their heads, if however, you use the non-politically correct terminology, a vocal minority will come for you – often the ones with the privilege (think Harvard) and call you a racist.

No one wants this.

Racist will get you blocked; it will get you cancelled.

And so, those seeking a quiet life go with the flow, Latinx and another protest or negative Tweet is averted.

We live in an echo-chamber of fear.

Possessed of an anxiety that we might be seen to be on the wrong side.

The perspicacity of the president’s was such that they became disorientated and floundered.

What was obvious couldn’t be said for reasons beyond my ken.

And so, we live in a surface world.

One where decisions are taken in the way in which what we say or do is determined by a loud minority, who don’t care that their arguments are nonsensical (zombie ideologies according to Simon Sebag Montifiore) as they have the rabid energy to keep going in front of journalists. (They also make good telly).

And we all suffer.

We fall into a grey of political correctness where people who are terrorists hide behind the slogans of young Americans and Brits in the same way they shelter behind the residents of Gaza and the West Bank.

The act of using a human shield is appropriate when the Little Satan is coming for you.

We have an angry youth.

The anger of the disadvantaged and the disenfranchised spills over in these protests. Like a child striking out at their parent, like a cat defending its litter.

Logic goes out the window and we are left with reflex.

A spinal reflex does not involve the brain. It bypasses rationality and this is where we are.

A world ruled by spontaneous acts of illogicality.

Perhap X could adopt this as its next name.

‘Spontaneous illogicality,’ formerly ‘X’, formerly Twitter.

The diasporic echo chamber

Yesterday, my daughter enquired as to why I had not written a blog, as has been my habit for the past eight years.

It’s been a Saturday thing.

Up early, dog walk, blog then head to the lake for a swim.

Clockwork.

Like the mechanism of a Patek Philippe. Orderly, consistent, steady.

I hadn’t written as I was feeling worn out.

The war and troubles at work had ground me down.

Pestle and mortar, I am the pulp.

The war has been exhausting.

Not the kind of tired the soldiers who are sleeping on their nerves and wit must know and not the fatigue the mothers and fathers of the kidnapped experience, more a weariness that has no outlet.

On my go-to radio, GLZ, they have started to play more music, interspersed with an increasing number of adverts. Those were absent in the first weeks of the war. Normality is returning, an ordinariness that, like the mind-body disconnect that happens to someone in mortal fear, is a safety mechanism to allow life to continue.

In the Diaspora there is no break, it is relentless.

Yesterday I heard that someone had complained about Macron lighting a Hannukah candle in the Elysée Palace. This was I gather, a deviation from France’s strictly secular code of practice. What upset me was not the person complaining – there are all sorts of cranks out there, more, the need for the BBC to report on this triviality.

I think of my colleagues and friends who hear about the plight of the Palestinians, randomly bombed in Gaza City and Khan Yunis. Israelis murdering refugees is the narrative. How can that be just? I hear of American progressive Jews calling on Biden to order a ceasefire, I see the daily reports of soldiers killed on the front-line. Last week it was the former Army Chief of Staff Eizencot’s son, yesterday it was his nephew. Two young men in the prime of their lives, snuffed-out the narrative.

I hear the cries of Genocide and listen with the same perplexity as discussed by Yossi Klein-Ha Levi and Donniel Hartman in their Podcast last week.

The two analysed the narrative, why, what, wherefrom (Genocide)?

Concluding in their analysis the metaphor that Israel has become.

The imagery sent to us from Iran of the Little Satan, supported by its magus America, the Big Bad Capitalist Overlord.

The twisting of reality, the good is bad and right is wrong that so many have adopted.

In their discussion they consider the way in which Israel and the Jewish People through their transformation from being the damned of history, the victims of an actual genocide, acquired power and in doing so flipped the narrative. From weak to strong. From homeless to homecoming.

Everyone loves an underdog.

The Jews were once the dispossessed, as they boarded the transports, no longer. Now that mantle has passed to the Palestinians albeit in different circumstances and an altogether different situation.

Sometimes, on social media, the numbers of Palestinians living in the West Bank, Gaza Strip or globally pops up alongside the number of Jews living in Syria, Sudan, Iran, Yemen, or Iraq. From ancient populations in their hundreds of thousands to zero. Not one. That is ethnic cleansing.

And the people shouting ‘from the river to the…’ which is genocidal language not realising the perversion of their words.

Be’eri and Nachal Oz were the river to the sea. The campaign in Gaza is an attempt to destroy a terrorist enterprise that rejoices in the deaths of its own innocents.

Even Hamas have acquired the trendiness of the underling.

And where from this logic?

Why are the young and not so progressives and left-leaning liberals taken-in by this ruse?

It’s a human trope.

We can’t help ourselves. We see power as bad and powerlessness as a cause.

There is nothing more pathetic that an overweight man, stripped to their underpants surrendering their weapon. Clad, they are a killer, naked they are a pity.

They remove their clothes and are innocent.

You remove yours and we will rape you.*

The narrative is precarious.

And within this morass of thought, ideas, and counterfactuals, I was shopping yesterday in Waitrose.

I don’t know why I go back to that place after the ‘date’ encounter of last year.

A week ago, I popped-in with my daughter. We bought some Telma Chicken Soup Mix and a packet of Matzoh Meal.

At the auto-checkout we were stopped for a scan.

‘We were targeted,’ I think to myself but do not say.

Yesterday we did the same, the checkout wouldn’t process our purchases.

All the time I was becoming increasingly anxious about the man in the yellow bomber jacket, Keffiyeh and ‘Free Palestine’ cap who was circulating the store, friendly with the security guys. Was he monitoring the Kosher foods (I bought Avocado Mezze and some Mandels), and manipulating the computers to conspire against me?

This is crazy paranoid thought.

It is thought that would not have happened before October 7.

In a quiz last week Tel Aviv and Haifa were some of the questions.

In a microsecond my mind jumped to alert, ‘Will someone say something?’

This is a diasporic anxiety that has never been part of my experience. It is a ripple of the actions of Hamas. Even in rural South Yorkshire, I am affected by the insecurity.

I learned yesterday that a friend of my son’s had posted a photo comparing Netanyahu to Hitler on social media.

My son was justifiably very upset. He wouldn’t tell me the outcome of the discussion that ensued.

I remember at the start of the war in Ukraine (that has fallen off the headlines, alongside events in Africa, South America, and Asia), Putin claimed the Ukrainians were Nazis. An absurd inversion given the numbers of people in Ukraine who were killed as a direct result of the Nazi invasion, and yet, it stuck, it hovered in the ethos.

And what of a world that sees Iran as good and the US as bad?

The Hartman Podcast rationalises the actions of young people as a cry against the general unfairness of life, of the imbalance that exists in society, either between the one per cent or the Boomer/Gen X’s and the rest.

The older and wealthy Westerners who have misused the planet, taken the money, the capital and are living-up their retirement that the Gen Z’s and Millennials will be forced to shoulder until they are worked into their own grey old age, in a world depleted of natural resources of rising water levels and extremes of weather.

Part of my sitting in the early morning typing (It is three am in Yorkshire), is a result of my not being able to run (and consequently sleep).

As in a Pesach ‘Chad Gadya’ (Old Woman Who Swallowed a Fly) narrative, a couple of months ago I was jogging in nearby woods. I summersaulted on the mud and sprained my ankle, this has resulted in my being unable to run, one of my psychological valves is out of kilter.

The mud, part of the increased rain we have experienced in the UK over recent years.

Climate Change.

Greta, the poster child of the environment has taken-up the cause of the Palestinians. She is a fan of Hamas.

Just like the dying dolphins and whales and orangutans, the residents of Gaza are under threat and her inner compass has taken her towards them.

In doing so, in associating with a terrorist cause she has alienated many of her supporters.

If she is wrong about Hamas, perhaps she was wrong about the icebergs.

It’s an easy rationalisation.

Antisemitic or Anti-Israel.

A fine line or so some say.

One and the same.

My ankle hurts and through that skeletal disequilibrium, so does my knee and my back. I feel a physical wreck. And where the body goes the mind follows.

A chaos of thoughts, cascade of feelings.

In Israel they stand by their windows and sing ‘Am Yisrael Chai.’

I don’t have anything to sing.

For me it is a diasporic echo chamber.

In case anyone is wondering, I wanted to leave these two statements ambiguous.

The ‘clothes’ statement relates to the stripping of Palestinian men in the South of Gaza. I found those pictures which spread on social media very difficult given their dehumanising nature. Equally, I understand the reasonable fear of people wearing explosive devices or weapons underneath their clothing. It’s a nightmare. Amongst the mostly innocent there are likely to be some very bad men.

In comparison, my perception of the women who were stripped naked and raped in the South of Israel is that all of them were innocent. Nothing that was done to them was justified or possibly justifiable.

There is a nuance in this phrasing which I suspect will derail some, particularly the ‘progressives’ who view 10/7 as a justified act of resistance.

No it was not.

It was systematic barbarism.

Left and Right Unite and mutually assure our compassion

When driving on a straight road,

Without traffic or pedestrians,

If you let-go of the steering wheel for a few seconds,

The car will travel straight for a time

and then, start to veer to the left or the right –

Part related to the road’s camber,

Part, the car’s own mechanics and balance,

So too with people.

No matter how straight the road,

No matter how apparent the truth,

There will always appear a divarication,

Sinister or dexter

They say in Latin.

It used to be

If you were a Lefty,

That is a left-handed child,

Your teacher would beat you with a stick,

Resorting to physical manipulation – tying your hand behind your back in an attempt to defeat the devil.

As an aside,

My grandfather Ben

Wounded by shrapnel in the Second World War

Suffered a compound fracture of his right arm (photo);

He’d been a Lefty (Like Obama, I recall),

forced to use his right at school,

the wound, subsequently undoing the education.

Everything about him was left-handed except his cutlery which was,

Let’s call it Orthodox.

And the value of this deviation into the Latin origins or right and wrong and my family history?

Since I came of the age of reason, my inclinations have been towards the Left,

Within the European / Western concept of the ideology. (If you live in Israel it’s slightly different – I will explain shortly.)

I have always sided with the disadvantaged,

Whether those affected by socioeconomic deprivation, extremist ideology or environmental inequality.

I’ve supported the Green agenda.

I most recently protested in defence of a group of Syrian refugees living in a nearby hotel.

My NHS credentials are the same as my colleagues, free at the point of delivery, everyone equal.

I cringe at the notion of inequality

Inequity gives me heartburn.

I’ve even bought Greta’s books.

I don’t believe in hunting, I don’t eat animals.

I do my best to be what my mum would have described,

As a nice Jewish boy,

A mensch.

And yet,

Here I am,

Faced by those who have been driving similar cars to mine,

Travelling the same rutted roads

Who have veered into a mess of Anti-Israel and Anti-Semitic rhetoric.

It is hard to understand.

There is an argument that the academics in some universities in the US and UK have followed the notion that as Israel is strong and Palestine is weak, the former must be the aggressor and the latter the victim, much based upon their own internalised colonial and imperial guilt.

They have focused on the superficialities and, sometimes, realities and accepted that the plight of the Palestinians trumps any alternate, their situation so grim that history can be distorted, manipulated in an Orwellian switch. Good becomes bad and bad good. The devil dances with the angels.

And whilst it is true that the Palestinian People have experienced decades of tragedy after tragedy almost all of which has been wrought by their flawed and self-interested leadership, they haven’t always sat on the best side of history, whether that was buddying-up with the Turks and Germany in 1914, Hitler in 1939, celebrating 9/11 or more recently dancing in the street over the 7/10 massacre.

And yet, the intellectuals have adopted, let’s call them, academic blinkers and pursued one narrative; they have taken the Left and veered so far off-course that they have about-turned, they share more in common with the Right that was ever conceivable.

The Left, traditional doyens of peace and love, singers of Blowin’ In The Wind, instead shout for the blood of the Jews, for the annihilation of Israel.

It has left me discombobulated.

Am I on the Right or the Left?

Is my steering awry?

In Israel, the respective ideologies have traditionally represented a stance in favour of peace at all costs, including Palestinian independence and autonomy, rights for minorities and less to do with wind-farms and veganism than in England and America, and the Right, security over all, including morality, suppressing the rights of others, expanded West Bank Settlements and the like.

And, oddly,

Following 10/7, the Israeli Right and Left have come together.

From the brink of civil war this summer and early autumn, they have united against their common foe (all except a few cranks, Ben-Gvir, Shmotrich and others).

Consequently, as we in the UK have separated, Israel has unified.

It’s interesting.

I used to rationalise that part of the left/right split amongst peoples was an evolutionary trick to save a group – literally, one set of hominids would have veered to the left and lived, the other to the right and not, all influenced by our asymmetric brains, and now, this confusion has thrown that theory into disarray.

Am I to the Left or the Right?

I still drive my electric car, I still go out of my way to support my disadvantaged patients and yet, I stand with Israel, I stand with blue and white.

It seems precarious.

At times I am on the edge, the cusp of association. I see the murdered children, old men and women in the South, the fallen soldiers then listen to the news about Israeli bombardments in Gaza.

And yet, I always seem to fall one way.

And, I am OK with that.

This blog has brought me full-circle.

Back to where I began.

I try to do my best from a position of equity and equality. All men and women are created equal, all have the same weaknesses and strengths, the same inadequacies and disorientation.

Mostly human, yes, all too human.

The Moustache

It is November.

In case you hadn’t noticed.

This week, I was told-off by one of my colleagues for excessive use of sarcasm.

The moment related to a presentation I gave to a group of staff about dementia and delirium.

I used the phrase, ‘they can do what they want to you,’ Or words to that effect, implying that when an individual shifts from being a person to a patient they lose both their autonomy, that is, their ability to self-determine and their inner compass. People agree to accepting tests and procedures that in normal life they wouldn’t consider.

‘Bend-over please, this won’t hurt,’ Kind of thing. There I go again.

Anyways.

Apologies for the intro.

Yes, it’s November.

Or Movember if you live in the UK.

Years ago, the campaign began in Britain to raise awareness of prostate cancer. It encouraged men to grow moustaches in November, hence, Movember.

Over time this has shifted to awareness raising of all matters-male, men’s physical and mental health in particular.

And so, here I am.

Although this November is different.

This November, I have grown a sapam (שפם).

That is, Hebrew for, yes, moustache.

I have therefore a dual-purpose moustache.

It is the font of male-health, and it is also a mark of solidarity for the Israeli soldiers in Gaza.

I appreciate this latter is harder to comprehend, particularly if you are reading from the UK.

Many of Israeli soldiers, young and old have resorted to growing moustaches, primarily I suspect as an act of battle-field convenience, but also as a symbol of the old Israel, of 48 and 67 and 73, where ‘taches were more fashionable.

For some – aka, my brother, moustaches have never gone out of fashion.

Why all this talk about upper lip hair?

Before I explain, I’d like to mention a third, perhaps more painful concatenation of moustache-talk.

When I was 11 or 12 years old, living in Glasgow, I didn’t have precocious puberty per se, although I did have an early growth of hair on my upper lip. It’s a thing with some dark-haired boys (and girls). In some cultures, it is respected, in the UK it was deeply embarrassing. When you are 11 you want to be a child, not a mock grown-up.

Consequently, I was bullied.

This was ironic as I attended the only Jewish School in the whole of Scotland, Calderwood Lodge, where amongst the other children there were some dark-haired kids; I guess I was one of the darkest.

We have three moustaches.

Let’s call them, the moustache of childhood embarrassment, the moustache of men’s health and the moustache of the Israeli military.

There is of course the short 1986 novel by Emmanuel Carrère ‘La Moustache’ which tells of the existential collapse of the protagonist, who after shaving-off his moustache (and no-one including his wife noticing, realising, or remarking), his life falls-apart.

I’ve been asked jokingly on several occasions, ‘Rod, is there something different about you?’

Each time I have returned responded, ‘No, what do you mean?’

If explicitly asked, ‘Movember?’ I’ve given a non-committal reply.

Sometimes you don’t have time or energy to delve into the intricacies of your decision-making processes.

To say, ‘I have grown my moustache in solidarity with the young Israeli soldiers who are being killed by Hamas fighters in Gaza,’ would seem too complicated, particularly given that most of those enquiring wouldn’t be expecting such a serious reply, a little like, ‘How are you?’ Which is not an actual request for soul-exposition.

And, so, I have let it go.

Part of me has also felt uncomfortable with the notion that I am supporting the Israeli soldiers, not because I don’t, please don’t get me wrong, without Israeli’s army the massacre on the 7^th would have become a nation-state bloodbath.

When I read the news from Israel and learn of another young man or woman killed in combat, I feel the pain. Most are in their late teens or early 20’s, most planning a life not fighting but getting-on with the mundanities of work, holiday, family.

Instead, I know there have been thousands of Palestinians killed in the armed response to the 10/7 attacks, this makes it difficult.

I do not celebrate the tragedies within Gaza.

The victims of the conflict are the people of Gaza and Israel.

The enemy is Hamas.

And it is this final point which has encouraged my hair-growth.

Israel is in a fight to the death.

Israel is being attacked from the North and the South. The Houthis in Yemen, and by extension Iran are all attacking. None of this reaches the headlines. It’s brushed under the carpet.

Hamas shelters behind and within its civilian population, it celebrates in the death of the Israelis and perversely rejoices at the death of their own.

It is a cult of death.

It is an attempt to bring Saladin-like, Islam to the world, to create an Islamic state, a global expansion of Iranian fundamentalism.

And although not winning militarily today, as opposed to 10/7, it is winning in other areas.

As described recently by Jonathan Freedland, in his piece in The Guardian, if Hamas fires a rocket at Israel and it kills Israelis (Jew, Christian or Muslim, they don’t distinguish), they have won. If Israel retaliates and kills human-shield Palestinians, they have won in the eyes of the world as Israel becomes the child-killer and the Hamasnik rides-off on his motorbike.

On UK and US University campuses, as the Left shifts further and further away from reality to being a function of fundamentalism, they are also winning.

It was only this week that I discovered the purpose of military fatigues. That is, the khaki or the green and black stripes. Although useful if you are fighting in the jungle as a form of camouflage, their principal aim is to distinguish between combatant and civilian.

According to the Law of War, during battle, it is OK for soldier to kill soldier – that is the reality, for soldier to intentionally kill a civilian (as with 10/7), that is a war crime, and, for a soldier to pretend to be a civilian to kill a soldier, that too is a crime as is a soldier dressed as a civilian, hiding behind a child shooting at an Israeli.

As moustaches are big in the Middle and Far-East, I am not sure where they fit-in.

And so, my lack of exposition about the nature of my moustache is both from a perspective of sensitivity as well as an awareness that in my country (the UK), given the broad media bias against Israel, showing overt support is contentious.

Over recent weeks, the Twitter tag ‘NHSAntisemitism’ has come to the fore. I had not considered this before.

And yet, it’s been there.

For a Muslim, Christian or Hindu to externally demonstrate their religion with a Hijab, Crucifix or Bindi is accepted. Normalised and protected religious characteristics. My moustache, I am not sure.

Over recent weeks I have thought about wearing my Magen David.

And yet, I have not.

In part because of NHS guidelines relating to jewellery which prohibit anything except a wedding band, in case of infection or objects falling-in to patients.

Radiographer to colleague, ‘I have just seen the strangest thing on the CT…’

Perhaps this is why tattoos are so common.

I’ve considered a Menorah or Star of David tattoo although that seems painful and how do I know that the tattooist isn’t an Antisemite and might draw a Swastika on my arm or generally do a bad-job – perhaps, the wrong number of branches on the Candelabrum.

Life is tricky, it is a balancing-act.

Sure, no one is actively trying to kill me, and the paranoia is self-made and yet, it doesn’t appear to be getting any easier.

What will I do the next time I am asked about my upper lip? How will I respond? Maybe I could direct them to this blog, that might be easier, it might allow me to move-on.

It’s not what you said, it’s the way you said it.

I received a surprise reply to one of my postings on LinkedIn yesterday.

It was in response to my blog about baby Kfir and his mum and the lies and manipulation of truth.

Let’s start with the premise that what I say I believe.

Now, just because I believe something doesn’t make it true.

And, even if something is true, it is not necessarily a fact.

It reminds me of the path I followed this summer on my bike.

Initially it was a good trail, clear, free of mud, rocks, or other obstacles. At a certain point, it started to narrow.

‘I’ll see it through, it is, after all, a way,’ I reckoned.

Yet, the route became narrower.

Nettles and brambles encroached.

I pushed-on.

Eventually I reached a dead-end.

A trick.

There was no going forwards.

I had to reverse, about turn and pass through all the stinging and scratching plants that had reclaimed what was originally their own.

That night, such was my degree of discomfort, I woke and took an antihistamine. My skin was on fire, paraesthesia scintillating my knees and calves.

All to end up where I began.

I’ve spoken with fellow runners and cyclists and this phenomenon is not unusual.

Perhaps it reflects something in the human psyche.

My colleague empathised with Kfir’s situation and then challenged me on the 4,000 thousand Palestinian children who have died since the outset of the war (Hamas data).

I appreciated his emphasis, at the end of his post, of not supporting Hamas.

I agreed. He further replied, if only the Palestinians had been given a country in 2000.

I wasn’t sure about his dating and did not want to correct or challenge as I got his point.

I could of course have replied, what about 48 and 56 and 67 and 73 and, and?

I let it lie.

Sometimes you need to accept, particularly when social media is involved, the toxicity of the interaction, its inherent gamification is what earns the companies their money.

The more hate and dispute, the more clicks.

Love does not increase revenue.

Another post of mine led to consternation.

It was a group of smiling dogs. The caption underneath reported that these were the dogs rescued from the South of Israel, currently seeking owners.

At the time, I did think it suspicious as the dogs looked both very happy and well organised, not the traumatised creatures you might expect.

I posted it anyway.

Like nearly all dog or cat posts it got a couple of likes, even a ‘Poor dogs.’

Those of you familiar with social media will know that puppies and kittens get more engagement that victims of terror, it’s just the way of the human psyche.

I guess, if the inverse were the case, we, that is humanity, would be in an even worse state than it already is.

And so, another colleague replied a fortnight later, ‘I reverse image searched your photo and it is from 2015, a US dog show. Why have use used this picture?’ The insinuation, ‘You have made this up, there are no dogs and, by corollary, no October 7^th.’

At least that was how I took it.

I will not describe the rest of the communication.

No, I am not a fan of intentional disinformation.

Dolls wrapped in ketchup smeared sheets pretending to be dead babies is, I believe an order of magnitude greater than my canine misadventure.

And so it goes.

Remember Markus Zuzak’s novel, The Book Thief?

Every time the numbers of murdered innocents increased; the devil rubbed his hands.

Today, the Devil must be getting RSI.

His lips chapped, cracked, from repetitive licking.

Yesterday I listened to Yonit Levi and Jonathan Freedland on their podcast Unholy interviewing the journalist Kara Swisher.

Where will this end?

The Devil appears to be the only one gaining traction.

Hate and more hate, lies and deception.

Distraction.

As the hundreds of thousands of people march through the streets of London, in the UK we are having the ‘Covid Enquiry,’ or, you might call it, ‘The investigation into the unnecessary deaths of 200,000 plus innocent people,’ this has been whitewashed, pushed from the headlines.

Across the world, other leaders are gaining momentum, increasing their traction by the distraction in the Middle East.

I wonder how much this is part of Iran’s long-term plan.

Generate global hysteria about the Jews, then complete their plans to obtain a nuclear weapon.

It can’t help but end badly.

As a doctor I am morally and legally bound to be honest.

As I said at the beginning, honesty is frequently relative.

My truth is not necessarily yours.

‘It looks bad,’ I tell my patient, with full knowledge that it is worse than bad. It is terminal.

I attenuate my words to soften the blow, is this lying?

My patient, I always call her Enid (89 years), asks me where she can find her mum. ‘I haven’t seen her yet, I am sure she is on her way,’ I reassure.

Life is a balancing, a levelling of truth and reality.

It strikes me that when people claim to either have the revealed truth or believe they are in a position of absolute objectivity, that is when things start to go wrong.

I think of Christopher Hitchens.

He wasn’t well liked.

We like our fantasies.

Reality can be brutal.

Truth, Lies, and everything in between.

Since the 7^th of October I have been trying to understand.

After the shock

After the horror

After the disbelief, then realisation

of the events,

My aspiration has been to communicate.

To rise above the misinformation.

It has been impossible.

Reality isn’t what it used to be,

They say,

Truth, lies and videotape.

Look left and good is bad,

Right and bad is good,

Not politically,

Literally,

Physically,

One side calls for death, the other life.

In 1967, following the Six Day War, when Israel successfully defeated the combined armies of Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq, and, the paratroopers stood by the Western Wall, with moustachioed tears, the Israeli army also occupied the site of the Dome of the Rock.

Following discussions between the government and the army, it was decided to provide the religious Jordanian authorities control over the Dome of the Rock (which continues today, despite all the intervening palaver).

This place, Qubbat al-Sakhra is holy to Muslims. It is believed to be where Muhammad ascended to heaven.

It is also holy to the Jews. We call it the Temple Mount. It is where our temple stood before the Romans knocked it down in the year 70 AD/CE.

This calculation, made by the army commander Moshe Dayan – he of the eye-patch, led to suspicion.

The confusion arose as his act was both of and ahead of its time.

It was visionary, prophetic, it said, ‘You, Muslims can access and control your holy site, we, Jews will have ours, the Western Wall.’

The two places abut.

And the consequence?

Disbelief.

‘If this place is so holy to you (Jews), why are you giving it to us (Muslims)? Everything you say is a lie.’ The corollary being, was the situation reversed and had Jordan held-on to Jerusalem following the war, their forces would not have benevolently allowed Jews access to their holy place, they would have said, ‘This is ours, keep out.’ (Temple Mount and Western Wall).

Dayan’s benevolence led to disbelief.

Their act demonstrates that the Jews’ allegiance to the Holy Land is fictitious. A dream, fantasy.

Just as people deny the events of the Holocaust.

Either because they are cynical, cruel or because of the catastrophe’s unimaginable enormity.

….Lambs to the slaughter, they laugh… pull the other one.

Genocide, stranger than fiction.

Just as stories were created in the Middle Ages, of Jews kidnapping Christian babies to use their blood to make Matzah (NOT part of the recipe).

The blood libels have translated into the very recent, ‘Israelis bombed the hospital,’ or, ‘October 7^th was a false flag, never happened, made by Spielberg to provide the Israelis an opportunity to kill Palestinians.’

Incredible how reality can be twisted.

I guarantee that 99.9% of those marching through Central London this morning, waving Palestine flags and railing against Israel will never have stepped in either country, will never have laid their hands on the Western Wall or Al Aqsa.

I’ve done both – yes, they are real.

There is a song about Jerusalem, ‘There are stones with the hearts of men and men with hearts of stone,’ and, so it goes.

My reality and yours.

‘Yes, you have touched the stone, it wasn’t real. A fata morgana; get back to where you came from!’

‘I did, I have, this is my place of origin!’ (Shouts the Palestinian and the Israeli.) – Only one reality can exist.

Co-existence is non-existence (well, yes, that was true for the Be’eri residents.)

And yet, the world it seems, is against Israel.

‘What do we care? We don’t need to be liked.’

In Arthur Miller’s play, ‘Death of a Salesman,’ Willy Loman just ‘wants to be well liked.’

Funny.

Putin doesn’t appear to care.

Does Nasrallah lose sleep because a few Jews don’t like him?

At least the Russian Oligarchs have friends (other Oligarchs, the other very, very rich of the world and the leaders of Iran, Syria, and North Korea.) – a gaggle of angels.

The protesters share more in common with Kim Jong Un than Kfir (lion cub). The tiny ginger headed baby; kidnapped.

Truth and lies.

I have tried to describe my truth, taken from listening to podcasts and Israeli radio the internet and TV, I have read and reflected.

One can never be sure of anything.

Perhaps life is all an illusion?

We don’t have time for philosophy, not when someone is hammering your door, Kalashnikov locked and loaded.

Is there a point to my words?

Am I writing as a personal balm, a self-salve or am I able to influence?

You see, to me it is logical, it is black and white:

Hamas is bad. They want to kill all Israelis, whether Jewish, Muslim or Christian, once they have killed the Israelis (there are only 10 million), they will move-on to me and my family, then the gay or transgender person across the road, then the 20-year-old with learning disability and the old man in the wheelchair, ‘Christian – die,’ ‘Atheist – die.’

This is Fundamental Islam at its best.

If you tolerate this, then your children will be next.

Have you seen the sketch with the students of Columbia Antisemity?

They play the part of the innocent who welcomes Dracula, such is their experience, their naivete. ‘Come, sit, here is my neck.’

‘Don’t do it!’ We scream at the TV. And yet, Dracula keeps coming, his army of the dead expanding their numbers, their position, their influence.

I suspect the only way through this is comedy.

Unfortunately, I’m not very funny and my medium is serious-talk.

I tuned-in to Have I Got News for You last night. I knew it would be delicate. I switched off after five minutes. You have to be in the right mood for that kind of thing. Tiptoeing through a mindfield – literal and figurative or saying the wrong thing makes for too-tense viewing. Mis-step and you are Fatwa’d; life changes. If you are lucky, you will just be stabbed in the eye.

‘Believe me!’

Whenever you hear this, you know to question what is said, what you hear.

‘OK, don’t believe me.’

The right or the wrong side of history.

What can you do?

Should Israel not have responded to the massacre?

Should the bombs not have fallen?

Should the army have sat on their hands and waited for something else?

What about the hostages? 36 days today.

I can’t imagine.

What about their work, their plans, their suddenly in the middle of life events?

The clock stopped.

Moments grind to a halt and we are on a treadmill.

Running to stand still.

Running to go nowhere.

Last night I dreamed a young Israeli had been rescued. Somehow escaped from Gaza.

The dream was him, become a visionary, telling the families of the kidnapped people the fate of their loved ones.

Initially it appeared possible that he has spoken to Oded or Avda or Yocheved.

Later you realise he is lying.

He is cracked and making it up, ‘David, he wants to be a pilot, he is fine. Dafna, curly hair, she says hello, she is still planning to travel to France,’ and so on.

Lies, lies and untruths.

Reality is not what it used to be, perhaps it never was.

Close your eyes and think of better times.

Perhaps return to the Garden of Eden, before the apple, to the time of innocence.

Innocence without experience.

Babes in arms.

Oh, they have been kidnapped too.

A trying not to be cynical interpretation into the events in Israel and Gaza

In his book, The Jewish War Front, Ze’ev (Vladimir) Jabotinsky wrote of the way in which the Jews of Europe were used by Hitler and the Nazis as a means by facilitate their rise to power.

If my memory serves me correctly, he described the Jews as being the oil or grease which enabled Hitler. (This prior to the realisation of the reality of Jewish rendering).

I read that many years ago, if the exact words are different, the sentiment is the same.

Throughout history people, mostly White Men have used the Jews either as a diversion from their own leadership or economic failings or as a focal point for a nation’s hatred.

Whether the Jews were in Russia, Poland, Lithuania, Germany, Hungary, France, or England, they have been the world’s punch bag. Those who to blame when times are bad.

Who knew? My people are a metaphor for everything that is and can go wrong.

We have no money/jobs/health/food/houses/ (we have hunger/plague/unemployment), etc. No matter the time or place, the Jews have always been a convenient scapegoat.

And, interesting that the Jews invented the term scapegoat, as the means by which a community’s sins were expiated through sacrifice.

So, perhaps the Jews are to blame after all.

My brother shared a cartoon with me yesterday.

I won’t show it here as I hope for this blog to be posted on the Times of Israel website and they (the publishers) are very concerned with issues of copyright.

The picture was of Parliament Bridge in London on four separate occasions, the first following Assad’s murder of over half-a million Muslims, then the killing for quarter-of
a million Muslims in Yemen by the Houthis, third, after the 35,000 Muslims massacred in Myanmar and finally ‘Israel defending itself against Hamas’

On the first three occasions the mass demonstrations were absent, only against Israel were the people able to unite.

It summarised in a way that only cartoons and memes are able.

You might call it hypocrisy.

I’ll call it, ‘the way things have been for ever and always, if you are a Jew.’

Daily, I read the BBC headlines (Sorry, Guardian, I have deleted and unsubscribed) all describing the Israeli atrocities.

The broadcaster’s refusal to describe Hamas as a terrorist organisation ringing in my ears – like my tinnitus that has progressively increased since 10/7.

Why? Why do this? Why have the BBC been anti-Israel for as long as I can remember, back to the days of their corresponded Orla Guerin standing outside the Old City, following a suicide attack ‘by Palestinian militants,’ wrapped-up within a narrative of, ‘They (the Israelis) brought it upon themselves.’

The BBC is a global network.

Do you like David Attenborough? The BBC has been his medium. The BBC is shown in secular, Christian and Muslim countries across the world, in Africa, Asia and Latin America. It has a reach far greater than that of Mr Sunak and his air-miles. And, although a great number of Christians and Muslims support Israel’s existence, the populist voice is opposed, and, if your viewers – your funders are populists and your requirement is for clickbait, well, the rest is obvious.

You don’t broadcast what is happening, you communicate what the people watching you want to see or hear is happening.

It is a perversion of reality exacerbated by social media and corporate greed.

What about Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and others?

The Arab world can demonstrate an incredible solidarity when they are able to fixate on a hatred of the Jewish People or of Israel.

It’s that same old lubricant.

Take a failing leader and watch his actions.

He (infrequently, ‘she’), can try to blame the opposition for their failings, ‘We’ve had ten years of ‘X’ government and look at the state of the economy!’ I’m not quoting verbatim
although I may as well.

What happens when you aren’t ruling a democracy and you have been in power for 10, 20 or 30 years?

You can’t blame your opponents as, in many of these countries there are no opponents – any opposition is murdered, expelled or rotting in jail.

Enter ‘the Jew’ I use those words as for all of Sacha Baron Cohen’s poor-taste humour, this is something he has skilfully demonstrated with his Borat movies.

I know that the leadership of Jordan and Egypt and Morocco, all of whom are ‘at peace’ with Israel, enjoying full diplomatic relationships likely see the good in the country – the love of family, the celebration of youth, education, enlightenment, the desire for peace and, yet, they can’t show this publicly. They must ride the populist wave.

Queen Rania of Jordan has spoken about the Israeli brutality. You don’t have to go far to uncover the brutality directed towards the Palestinians living in Jordan. That is another story.

She and her husband occupy a perilous throne, one which is dependent upon control and command, one which could easily be overthrown.

Incidentally, the king’s great-grandfather, Abdullah the First of Jordan was assassinated by a Palestinian in 1951. I thought I would throw that in. I’m sure, that was also the fault of the Israelis.

And, so, I kind of get the actions of some of those countries who have ululated the Israeli genocide.

The genocide which allows humanitarian corridors, which in normal times employs (and is dependent upon) a significant proportion of the population, which has provided medical treatment and care to those same people (have you heard about the Gazan’s stuck in Israel – they had been attending Israeli hospitals).

If the Israelis are genocidal, they are not doing a particularly good job.

No, they are not. They are defending their right to exist, just as you would in their situation.

This is hypocrisy in case you hadn’t realised my intent.

What gets me, what infuriates me, are the young people, very often American or European students protesting. Calling to Free Palestine without knowing their topic, without realising the complexity of the situation, the history, the pain of the past and present. For them, ‘From the river’ is a catchy slogan, even better as it rhymes. What moredoes and indolent protester need?

Those same people who have cosy existences, the Greta’s, and others, who have access to as much information as they can consume, who prefer not to read-up but to paint placards.

Trendy.

Is this just a trend?

It is trend that has been going-on for two millennia.

Do you see yourselves? Do you hear yourselves? Are you not ashamed, as you pull down posters of children who have been kidnapped, as you call for a ceasefire to allow Hamas to bed-down and kill more Israelis – Jews, Christians, and Muslims?

How come, Muslims living in Israel are prepared to take-up arms and defend the country that you are demonising?

You forgot about the Israeli Arabs and those living in Druze and Bedouin communities. Their allegiance is to the State of Israel. Not to lily-livered Lefty ideology.

Listen to me! I sound like a fascist.

That is what happens when you are forced to take sides. When complexity is interpreted through a lens of simplicity, when you don’t consider historical biases and influences.

Trust me, I am not a Right-winger. And yet, at times I find myself leaning in that direction. It is a perversion.

A perversion that is almost as weird as the actions of Hamas that led me to purchase my Star of David or to attend the local Friday Night service at the synagogue or tune-in to Israeli Army Radio, rekindling my Hebrew language skills after a 30-year hiatus.

I am therefore perhaps as mixed-up as others.

I will say no. I believe I retain the insight to weigh what is good or bad.

I do not celebrate the men, women and children who have died in Gaza, just as people should not rejoice at the deaths in the South of Israel or the 19- and 20-year-old Israeli soldiers who would rather be dancing or watching the sunset with their boyfriends, dreaming of their future.

The miracle of the end

It begins with an image of

Hundreds of thousands of people

Marching.

United,

Demonstrating,

Flags flying.

I flash to the M&S Christmas Campaign,

Now removed.

Of the red and black, white and and green

Party hats

Charred in the fireplace.

Then the baby,

Carbonised,

And the dead child

Plump arms

Caught in her father’s shirt.

Images of soldiers

Hugging their children

As they return from the Front.

Burned,

Collapsed,

Buildings.

I was playing only this week, one of those counterfactual mind-games,

Whereupon,

At the last UK election

When Corbyn

Was leader of the Labour Party,

And imagining,

Had he won

And had his strain of Antisemitism

Taken hold in the UK,

The protests held today and last week might have been bolder.

I heard today,

The experiences of Gidon Lev,

Holocaust survivor

And former Kibbutznik,

recalling his childhood,

Or the red tricycle his parent’s couldn’t accommodate on their escape from Germany,

Of the Juden Verboten sign as he, filled with tears of rage failed to understand his grandfather’s actions in barring him from the swings.

I imagine

Checkpoints.

My nights

Are filled with unsettled dreams.

Some of the survivors

Describe a Groundhog Day.

A setting of the sun

And rising of the moon

And the day repeating.

And nothing changing.

Life at a standstill.

This morning, I read Dorit Rabinyan’s piece in Tablet.

The image,

An alarm clock,

Smashed,

The time stopped just after six thirty.

That six thirty that will go on for ever.

It made me shiver at the thought of an atomic winter

When not just the Kibbutz

Or Sderot clocks stop,

But all,

yours and mine.

An electromagnetic wave

Of evildoing.

This week I bought myself a Star of David necklace and one for my son.

Mine is silver, his, gold.

My daughter has been wearing hers since before the seventh.

Made in Israel,

She wears it alongside the Ahavah chain I bought her.

Ahavah, love.

I think of the death-cult that is Hamas.

They worship death and destruction,

They pray,

For pain and suffering,

They invert.

They have successfully controlled the media,

Brought to their side the Left-wing intellectuals, the professors and academics,

The Queers for Palestine,

Who are happy to exist in an unreality,

Considering that they would be the exception to the rule that Hamas kills those who are not with them, even those with them, if they fly the wrong flag, the Jewish or Christian or Baha’i or Gay, who say the wrong words, such as tolerance, co-existence, and Two-State Solution,

They, despite what you think, will wipe you out. Scrub you. I know you see the Israelis as the problem. The Jewish Problem that has been ongoing for the past two thousand years, where would we be without the Jews? Hitler and Stalin wouldn’t have succeeded, the Roman army would have turned against itself.

When all that is good is bad,

When day is night

When pain is the purpose

And laughter, joy and spontaneity considered wrong, misdeeds, then you know you should worry.

Double-speak.

Orwell, where did he get his ideas?

I flash to a tunnel.

A black

Freudian nightmare.

The sand I inhale,

It becomes trapped in my skin, in my pores, in my hair, my clothes,

I ossify,

My heart, turned to stone.

I think of Sivan Avnery,

Rescuing his son in the desert, thanks to WhatsApp.

And his tears.

He says he cries 50 times a day,

Today only 45,

Things are improving.

The mythic figures of Ammunition Hill

Ha-Kotel,

Sha’ar HaGai

The Burma Road.

The legends I learned as a child.

Never again.

Like lambs to the slaughter.

Arbeit macht frei.

Why do they hate us?

Why?

Claudius, South African ex pat, living in Spain

Says it’s to do with our success.

Israel, the Jewish people

en groupe

Have a winning formula,

it is straightforward,

that,

of loving life

of loving their children

and wanting peace.

Too much to ask?

Claudius imagines the people pulling the heads off the daisies,

Dulling the sun

for no one to shine.

My head and heart are heavy.

I tick off the moments of my own life.

My brain struggles to process.

To differentiate between the care, I provide my old patient,

Let’s say, Enid, 89 who falls repeatedly and whose memory is declining.

With Abigail, three, trapped somewhere in a cave, her parents murdered.

Alone, alone.

Levadi.

The same word in Hebrew

And the name of a Bialik poem.

At times like this,

I stand alone.

Alone you can defeat us,

Come together as one (because together, we got power, we got power).

I conjure the line from Primal Scream.

It’s an uncontested jumble.

A mess

Of pain and indescribable emptiness.

No beginning and no end.

Blood on the streets.

The protesters

Wave their flags,

And feel warm inside.

Their lives,

Hollow,

Empty,

Are suddenly filled with something.

A mission,

Let’s defend the rights of the threatened.

It is like burning coals,

Like powering the furnace

To cool the situation.

It doesn’t work,

It is misdirected,

Misinformed.

And yet,

More and more people join.

Let’s tear down the posters of the kidnapped children.

If they are killing Palestinian babies, theirs deserve to die too.

Is death in an oven as your parents watch,

Worse for the child

than a missile crushing another because their people won’t allow them to hide?

Death is death is death.

I don’t know why people say these things.

I think it is to fill the silence.

To help themselves when they feel the need to speak, yet have no words.

Time reversed,

Back to the 1930’s

100 years,

Rewind.

Israel’s representatives at the UN donned yellow Stars of David last week, a symbolic protest at the collective lack of world agreement to condemn the 7/10 attacks.

They brought it upon themselves they say, that is those either voting against or abstaining.

It is all politics that sullies humanity.

I do what I do because I want you to believe I am thus.

It is smoke and mirrors and no one knows what to do,

The obvious,

Siding with baby killers is their instinct.

Qatar can hold the World Cup and we look away,

Money speaks.

Saudi Arabia next,

They really aren’t that bad;

We need to co-exist,

We need to accept their ways.

They would love us to adopt their ways.

Black is white,

Truth is lies,

Up is down,

Perversion,

Inversion.

I jokingly think of the line from the Ghostbusters, Venkman’s famous, ‘Dogs and cats living together! Mass hysteria!’

A new world order.

It makes me sick.

Sad and sick and disheartened.

I’m sorry this isn’t my usual upbeat.

What can you do when everywhere you look is black, dark, empty.

A breath-hold only lasts so long,

Eventually it has to be over.

Better times in Israel, Rabin Square 2017. Photo Rod Kersh.

Colonial Rugby, Gaza and Israel

I watched the Rugby World Cup Final last night. Held in Saint Denis, South Africa were the winners by one point.

I am not a fan of rugby or any competitive sports – football, tennis, baseball; they all send me to sleep. For the most, I would rather read a book.

And yet, last night I sat-through the rugby.

There is a back-story to this, related to a Podcast called The Real Science of Sport with Professor Ross Tucker and Mike Finch.

One day, I will explain my actions in more detail.

Now, I do not intend to write about muscular men with odd-shaped balls.

At the start of the match, both teams stood in lines singing their national anthems – God Defend New Zealand, for the All Blacks, and, Nkosi sikelel’iAfrika for South Africa, the Springboks.

What was apparent?

It related to ethnicity.

You see, both New Zealand and South Africa had indigenous peoples long before Europeans arrived in 1840 and the 1650’s, respectively.

The players from both countries demonstrate a mix of ethnicities and races.

How would teams of Israelis and Palestinians appear? Could you tell them apart?

Both have semitic ancestry.

Some of the Israelis would look like me, as might some of the Palestinians (there is an Palestinian pitta-maker in Jaffa who is my brother’s twin,)

Yes, there will be some blue-eyed and blonde-haired Israelis, as there are Palestinians.

It is hard sometimes to establish heritage from a look at the face.

What is my point?

I have never seen a demonstration opposing the existence of New Zealand in Trafalgar Square.

This month, to stretch the geography, a referendum was held in Australia to determine a change to the nation’s approach to its Indigenous Peoples. It failed.

We all know the history of South Africa, the Apartheid slur that has recently been directed at Israel was a proud part of the South African governance system until its overthrow by Mandela, Oliver Tambo and Steve Biko and a handful of Jewish South Africans such as Ruth First, Joe Slovo and Lionel Bernstein.

I have not seen any protests related to South Africa or Argentina or Canadian homeland occupations.

Why?

There are, as far as I can tell several points which separate the reality.

The first, is that, when Europeans moved-in to Brazil, Cuba, or California, despite the mass murder, population relocation and death through contagious diseases, the local indigenous populations somehow managed, over the years, to get over it and cohabit.

This of course is an over-simplification and ignores that disparities which exist today between those with Spanish heritage living in Honduras or Peru and those whose family roots go back not centuries but millennia.

The second is the world’s approach to the, let’s call them ‘in-comers’.

As the protesters shout ‘death to the Jews’ the citizens of New Zealand and South Africa just got on with things. Yes, there are significant socioeconomic differences between peoples in both nations, none of which is right, yet there is no call from college professors to avoid the purchase of South African pomelos or New Zealand apples.

Another difference between Israel/Palestine and New Zealand/South Africa are that the Jews, when arriving in Israel – whether following the initial expulsions, or during the Ottoman or British occupation were not arriving de novo but returning.

This was not an invasion; it was a homecoming.

And the residents at the time, the Palestinians, did not appreciate the appearance of Jews arriving by land and sea.

They fought back, they attacked.

The Jews established settlements, or perhaps re-settlements of their original land, they built watch towers and fences to allow their work to transform Israel into the jewel that it is today.

The returning versus the arriving.

And over the decades, another dissimilarity has been the refusal of some of the Palestinians to ever accept the existence of Israel or the presence of the Jews.

Instead of focusing on the development of their own societies and cultures they have opted to attack, whether in 1948 or all the subsequent years, up and until October the 7^th and today.

Their refusal to accept a new reality, to invest in their children, in hospitals, universities and school building has led to the current situation. (Tunnel building in Gaza is disinvestment in education).

Note, I am not blaming the Palestinian People.

It is the leaders, the external forces, the cynical manipulation by outside forces that has created the Palestinian and Israeli tragedies we see today.

Imagine if Russia or America or the once Great Britain had decided to oppose the settlement of immigrants in New Zealand or South Africa or the Americas. Imagine they had spent untold amounts of money stoking hatred, indoctrinating little children in a revulsion for the other, imagine where we would be today.

The world would have fallen apart.

South Africa’s success is a reflection of things not falling apart, it is a reflection of the wisdom of its leaders of the Truth and Reconciliation Committee, of the evolution of a Rainbow Nation.

Maybe, behind the hopelessness of the situation in Gaza we can take succour from last night’s match.

Maybe, maybe not.

I have reflected deeply over the past three weeks, as I know, have many fellow Israelis, Jews, Palestinians, Christians, and Muslims. There is a way ahead, there is a dialogue to be had, we just need to listen and respect.

Hearing, listening and respect are in short supply.

Recently, I unfollowed Greta and numerous others who have I felt crossed a line from supporters of my system of belief to opponents.

I will have to one day switch on again if dialogue is to ever recommence.

For the moment, just now, the feelings are too raw, the pain too great, let’s hope for a dialogue tomorrow.

No news today.

No milk today, my love has gone away.

That is an irreverent opening.

I am thinking and writing about the news.

Were you ever told that ‘news’ stood for north, east, west, and south?

I’m sure that’s just a coincidence.

What is new?

Ma-Kol Chadash?

Last week, I explained to my daughter the Yiddishism ‘Nu?’

For some, the news is all there is.

Those individuals are avid consumers of facts and topical discussion.

What bad thing happened where and when.

Disaster-mongers.

‘Bring out your dead, your lost, your stolen, disavowed… show us the disaster, the earthquake, flood.’

No news is good news.

Another cliché.

Yesterday I reflected on ‘Am Yisrael Chai’

‘The People of Israel live’

This is a saying and a song.

In the song you chant ‘Am Yisrael Chai’ repeatedly.

The people of Israel live.

It has become a post-10/7 go-to.

We live because so many of us have been killed.

When talking about the events of the Middle East, it is easy to slip into numerical comparisons,

‘Your suffering isn’t as big as ours, XXXX thousands of our people died, only XXXX thousands of yours,’ and so on.

Suffering as we know from Frankel, is infinite.

It expands to fill the space available.

The toxicity reaches you wherever you are.

And the cliché has become a thing of the moment; it is what the soldiers shout on YouTube and Instagram, it is what I hear listening to the …news.

The news.

I have watched Channel 4 News (in the UK) for most of my adult life; it has been a 7pm routine. Turn-on, Tune-in. Krishnan, Alex, Cathy or Jon.

If desperate, and short of alternatives, I’d watch the BBC.

I have been a Guardian reader for decades.

Last summer I travelled through Israel completing Guardian Quick Crosswords on my phone.

No longer.

I’ve had to turn-off and tune-out.

Whether it is because, objectively, the news they broadcast is so very anti-Israel, whether it is merely old Antisemitic rhetoric, is hard to say.

They all play the narrative game.

Events do not happen in a vacuum.

The narrative that is the tragedy of the Palestinian People alongside the demonisation of the Israelis. The David’s who became Goliath’s.

I’ve been partially complicit.

I have criticised the Israeli government over the years – mostly personally, occasionally to close friends or family members, and yet, this has been continuous, cycled and re-cycled through the UK news, with more extreme anti-Israel sentiments the further Left you travel.

The only good Jew is a dead Jew.

Shout that and there is no headline.

Display 1400 dead Jews (and others) and it’s a one-night wonder. A flash in the pan. Mainstream headlines for a day then gone.

Some celebrated 9/11. Remember who they were?

There were many more celebratory cheers on 10/7.

‘They got what they deserved’.

‘It’s been coming to them for 75 years’.

‘To the river to the…’

The news stayed with the Jews it seemed, for a day, then everything flipped to the tragedy of Palestine.

Which yes, is a tragedy, but not wrought by the Israelis – it is one which is both self-inflicted and cynically deployed by other (mostly Arab) countries.

And so, I’ve turned-off the news.

I’ve not slipped into a vacuum.

I’ve flipped to the Times of Israel, Haaretz and the Jewish Chronical.

On dog walks, when driving my car or preparing food I am tuned-in to Galei Tzhahal (GLZ).

Israeli Army Radio.

I can’t imagine what the UK Army Radio is like.

I can guarantee GLZ is different.

It is hosted by loving voices, I listen to the evening programme, ‘Ha kol shel eema’ – ‘The voice of mother’ I hear the DJs offering hugs and expressions of love, filled with compassion and affection, they have listened, now, for three weeks to the tragedy unfold. The stories of the survivors – the ones who were not murdered or who managed to escape and if not, the reflections of the mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters on their relatives who were murdered or taken as hostage to Gaza or deemed ‘missing’ an anachronism for, ‘likely dead, their bodies taken hostage by Hamas for further cynical manipulation or trading’.

This week I heard a father describing the fate of his daughter, an Israeli soldier who is missing – presumed dead. She was due home on Thursday, her bedroom is prepared… The same day, the army cleared-out her belongings and returned them to us in a cardboard box.

He focused on her perfume. That was amongst her clothes, jewellery and other trinkets.

You don’t think of soldiers and perfume.

That is the humanity of people who are drafted to serve.

Israeli oppressors/tyrants/wall-builders/etc.

18-year-old girls are not sent away from their families out of choice; the Israeli army does not exist to make the lives of Arabs a misery – it is a military of necessity, it exists to avoid the bloodbath of 10/7. On that occasion it failed.

The Guardian proudly shows the wall that stands between Israel and the West Bank. ‘Look at the Imperialists, building walls on ancestral land.’

Why was the wall built?

To stop Hamas sending waves of Jihadi men and women into Israel to blow themselves up on buses, in cafes, restaurants and markets.

Remember the London and Birmingham bombings? How would the UK have reacted if they had continued week after week, year after year? Innocents people wiped out. A wall would have been small change within the overall calculus.

The man whose daughter is missing did not send her away from home for a laugh. It was necessity.

Another interview was a man whose son has been kidnapped, he is an Israeli soldier. The dad was worried about his son’s asthma, his inability to access his inhaler.

One of the politicians reflected, ‘If my daughter says she will be home at seven and she hasn’t shown by five-minutes past, I am desperate. 21 days is unimaginable.’

Imagine your son or daughter was kidnapped by the devil. What would you do? How would you react? How would you cope?

I heard the story of Chaim the driver. In his regular life he drove a bus, On 10/7 he rescued survivors from the Kibbutzim. ‘He saw what he couldn’t see, and what he saw broke him,’ So described his wife (I paraphrase). I listened to the story unfold on the radio, thinking, ‘He must have been wounded, perhaps died of complications in hospital.’

On Thursday (26/10) his body was found in his bus.

Chaim the driver couldn’t live with what he saw.

None of this is reported on Channel 4.

You are more likely to hear the Ayatollah shouting ‘genocide’ than the experiences of those who were massacred.

Let’s not talk sadism. Easier to flip to the binary of Israel BAD, Palestine GOOD. That is not contentious, for most of our readers/listeners.

It is such a perversion of reality that I despair.

In Hebrew they call it ‘Tohoo va-bohu’ = Chaos.

It is when everything good is seen as bad, when right is wrong, when love turns to hate, learning into stupidity and compassion into revulsion.

Go, go young man to Gaza, tell Hamas you don’t agree with them, tell them your sexuality or religious bent is not consistent with theirs and see what happens.

If you do the same in Tel Aviv you will be embraced, you’ll be welcomed.

Say, ‘I believe in pluralism,’ and they will wipe you out. They will chop off your head and dance with your corpse.

These are the people you celebrate.

They will force your daughter into servitude, to create more men.

A 10x of the Handmaid’s Tale.

That’s OK, isn’t it?

It’s Israel that is the aggressor.

It is Israel that manipulates the headlines.

Who bombed the hospital.

Oh, wait, let me correct that, once the story is absorbed, has saturated the international headlines; who did not bomb the hospital, who yesterday did not fire a missile into Egypt, who did not intentionally murder, murder.

Shout a lie a hundred times and people believe it.

Once something is seen or heard it is impossible to un-see or un-hear.

Once the libel is pronounced, retraction is only partial.

They use the blood of Christian babies to make their Matzah; let’s kill a few.

They control the banks, the cinemas, the media, let’s chant for their death.

Perversion, inversion, entangled hatred.

It is draining.

And my Scottish/English/Israeli/Jewish/Humanist brain has struggled to interpret the rapid-fire GLZ Hebrew, which I prefer to the languid narrative of the BBC.

‘If you don’t believe in God, you don’t believe in nothing, you believe in anything,’ supposedly said GK Chesterton.

If you are uninformed, you are not informed by nothing, you are informed by anything.

I wonder what my friends, my colleagues think.

They absorb this biased news and look at me.

‘What is wrong with that guy?’ ‘How can he support Israel? They are the worst.’

Walk through Jerusalem, Tel Aviv or Haifa and tell me what you see, how you feel.

I’ll tell you what.

You will feel safety, familiarity, for the values of those around you will reflect your own – those of a liberal democracy (that can complain about its government without being murdered.)

The world doesn’t see this.

It prefers to side with North Korea, Russia, China, Syria, and Iran.

I do not know why.

Words fail me.

You’d rather unite with the darkness than side with the light.

I know life will move-on,

10/7 will turn into a memory,

The war will be talked about in the past-tense and the world will rejoice in some other tragedy or intercontinental disaster.

And I’ll maybe return to Channel 4 or the Guardian, or perhaps not.

Maybe this is it.

I saw something circulating on social media yesterday. Jew and Antisemite. Thanks to Jean-Paul and Kit.

I saw something circulating on social media yesterday.

You

Might

Hate Jews

It gave me pause.

It was all about perspective

And solidarity

And the mess

That is

The Right

The Left

In the UK and beyond.

The Right

Yes,

With a capital

Is traditionally the place of the Antisemite

Take the

Nazi sympathiser

Or the

Anti-Gay/Immigrant/Refugee/Black/Yellow/Brown

Individual

And they are mostly

On the Right.

Yes,

On the right of the right,

But the Right.

And

What has happened over recent years,

The Corbyn era

I’ll call it

Has been that the Left

Which has seen itself

As the home of the tolerant,

The Guardian reading,

Channel 4 watching / Radio 6 listening public

Has become a haven of the Antisemite too.

This hatred is different,

It is not as overt.

As the Goose-stepping Right-winger

Who takes pride in their Nazi salute,

The extreme Left-winger

Will say

‘We love all people, we want everyone to be free.’

They will also stand in solidarity with the Palestinian People

Of which,

There is nothing wrong,

And yet,

They will apply an inequivalence.

They will Banksy-like

Scrawl on the wall that separates Israel from the West Bank

And argue that the wall is bad

Forgetting

The reasons behind its construction

Forgetting,

The car and bus and restaurant

Bombs

That were part of the Second Intifada’s strategy to murder innocents and terrorise the Israeli people.

And the Lefty

Forgets that when he rallies against

The Israelis,

He is forgetting that

An Israeli isn’t a religion

It is a nationality

And

Yet,

The majority of the people in that nation and Jews

And so

Anti-Israel

Is in fact

Anti-Jew.

The Israelis can integrate

Muslims

And Arabs

And Bedouin

And Druze

And Baha’i

And Christians

And Buddhists

As much as they like,

& yet

The place (Israel) should not exist.

It is the dirt on my shoe.

If you stood in solidarity at the football or the protests across the UK over the past fortnight and waved Palestinian flags and ignored the fate for the murdered Israelis, Jews and non-Jews and, let’s not forget the slaughtered foreign nationals, the Thais, Brits, Americans, German and French who came between the murderers intentions and their guns and knives and extreme acts of psychological, sexual and physical violence, if you stood with the Palestinians but not the Israelis, you are likely an Antisemite.

If you tell me that Antisemite merely means against the people from the East and does not distinguish between Jew, Muslim or Christian, you are missing the fact and likely leaning into Antisemitism, for you see, Israeli and Palestinians are both Semitic, from the East, and yet, the word Antisemite relates to the historical hatred of Jews.

We claim not just that word.

The Holocaust is ours too.

You, Antisemite have tried to give us another moniker as well, Apartheid, one which is solely South African; you describe a system of separation. ‘No Jews or dogs’ was a thing in countries across the world right up until the 1970’s, in South Africa they went for the more subtle, ‘Whites only.’ There are no such signs in Israel.

Israel is an integrated country, as much as a nation that can when juggling pan-national Antisemitism, neighbours who wish you dead and historical trauma.

A quarter of doctors and almost half of pharmacists in Israel are Arabs.

These are not forced to the margins.

Yes, racism and Jewish particularism does exist; an attitude to the other, be they Black or Brown, Native or Aboriginal is alive and well in the UK, France, US, and Australia.

I don’t see you burning their flags or chanting ‘Death to the French.’

All this is Antisemitism.

If you think, ‘He can talk, he is a rich Jew,’ you too are an Antisemite.

If you think, ‘They control the media, Weinstein was a Jew,’ you are probably an Antisemite also.

Is being an unconscious Antisemite as bad as one who knows that they are?

This reminds me of an allusion to the Passover song of the four sons,

He who knows he does not know.

and

He who does not know he does not know.

Don’t allow your ignorance to drag me under.

If you choose to ignore history,

Choose to ignore the reality

That for 75 years

The people of Israel have sought peace with their neighbours

You too might be an Antisemite.

If you say that what is wrong with Israel is that it exists,

Yes, you are an Antisemite.

If you say that you are Anti-Zionist but not Antisemitic,

I am afraid,

You are an Antisemite too.

Even if

You are a Jew,

In which case you hate yourself for being Jewish

Which is a state of self-loathing.

If you look at my nose

And think

Jew

My car or my house,

If you hear me as outspoken

And think

Jew

Or if,

You look at me and at yourself and see a fundamental difference in our humanity

You too

Might be an Antisemite.

If you

Hurriedly rushed to denounce Israel

Seconds after Hamas claimed the bomb dropped on the Ahli Ahrab hospital

Not realising

That Hamas

Are murderers

Anti-gay

Transphobic

Misogynistic

Haters

Or Jews

And anyone who is not a Muslim

You are perhaps an Antisemite too.

If you can’t distinguish between propaganda and reality

You are either deluded

and walking towards a psychiatric diagnosis

Or you

Are

Antisemite.

And me,

I take my paranoia further.

I am the explanation,

For my family

As to why I hate Friday Night Dinner

Not the meal,

Rather,

The British sitcom

For I see that in the same vein

As the TV comedies of the 70’s

That mocked Asians and Italians, Black and Brown people.

Jew-dar they call it,

My radar

Which determines who can say Jew and state an unambiguous fact

And who conveys secondary intentions.

Who singles-out Woody Allen,

‘I can’t stand that man,’

From all the other white male creeps running the world.

Remember the quote from The Holocaust,

Not all the victims were Jews, all the Jews were victims.

That is saying something.

If you ignore two millennia, not centuries, but 2,000 years of persecution,

From the Romans taking us to exile through the various expulsions from Spain and Portugal and England, if you ignore our forced conversions at the hands of the Inquisition or us burned alive in Clifford’s Tower in York, if you forget the Pogroms, the hundreds of years of persecution in Russia and Eastern Europe, the battles for independence and autonomy, if you forget that the Jews of British Mandated Palestine fought alongside Britain in the First and Second World Wars, you might not be in a position to judge or criticise.

If you ignore the reality that Jesus was Jewish and Muslims and Jews are both Abrahamic traditions with a shared ancestry, you might have slipped.

Have I bored you yet with my repetition?

Have you moved-on to other things?

I am boring myself.

It is exhausting.

Fighting from before I was born, fighting that I know will continue after I am gone.

If you look at the pictures of the men, women and children murdered on the 7^th of October and see them as getting what they deserve,

You are not only an Antisemite,

I would go as far as saying,

You are an Antihuman,

You exist outside of a reality that I understand.

It is too late for you.

I don’t know where you can go;

The cancer, to use medical terminology, has spread, you are in stage 4, metastases to your lungs, brain, and bone; your adrenal gland, liver and pancreas are all riddled with hatred, you have passed the point at which I can save you or you can save yourself.

And what to do when this stage is reached?

If your condition was related to malignancy, we would provide you with palliative care, we would not use your own medicine, let’s call it a homeopathic approach to a cure, beating you once you are down.

I am not doing to you that which you do to me.

I am different, better, other.

I am the punchbag of the world,

I absorb your blows,

And carry on.

I will carry on.

I will overcome.

I will survive.

I will deflect the hate and accept the love.

I will sing songs of peace,

I will hope,

I will not allow despair,

I will seek solace from the knowledge that the darkness can be illuminated by the tiniest of lights,

I will persist.

Some things don’t get to you until they slap you in the face.

I don’t know if it is unusual,

I suspect not;

I, like every parent, think continuously about my children.

I contemplate their feelings,

Their situation,

Their progress in life, ups and downs.

A bond connects us that only a parent can understand.

It is good and bad.

Good in that it is special, life affirming,

Bad in that it never gives you peace,

It is a constancy,

A niggle that pulls at your heart.

Before this past fortnight I, and here I and being very honest,

Never really thought or considered,

Despite what I have just written,

My children’s Jewish identity.

They were just my children.

I exist in a void,

My DNA recognises generations of Ashkenazi Jew

And yet,

I don’t pray, I don’t believe in God, I don’t follow the rules of Kashrut (which is moot, given my avoidance of all animal produce) (My daughter, at this point smiles, ‘But what about my challah, it’s made with eggs, and grampy’s birthday cake last night? Oh, and the Yorkshire Puddings, eggs, eggs, and some butter…)

OK, I am my own vegan. Enough to cause my bodily iron stores to deficit, not enough to get my through the gates of Evergreen Heaven.

I’m a similar kind of Jew.

I say Jew, not because of religious practices but because of my strong cultural identification with the past of my people. I’ve watched every Jewish or Israeli show on Netflix except for the Jewish Wedding one.

And, over the years, I have related this to my children.

My cultural essence.

I had not however, realised that they identify as Jewish too.

According to the rules of Halacha, the day-to-day rulebook for the Jewish People – prayer three times a day, avoidance of pork, rest on the Sabbath, there is the regulation about parentage; you are a Jew if your mum is a Jew. I am if you like, double-Jewish as both my parents were Orthodox Jews.

The modern world and other authorities over the millennia have stretched this definition, sometimes called the Nuremberg Laws, to include anyone with at least one Jewish grandparent.

In Nazi Germany, that was sufficient to remove all your belongings, gas you and then extract the gold from the teeth of your lifeless body.

Israel has adopted a similar ruling. Jewish grandparent is enough. This was used extensively in supporting Jews to leave Russia after the fall of Communism.

If it is enough to have a Jewish grandfather, does that make you a quarter Jew or the Jew with the full-set, a four-times Jew? I don’t know and don’t really care. It isn’t a game.

And what I experienced leading up to the Massacre, in the years and months before and in bas-relief afterwards, is my children’s identification as Jew.

And this has caused me angst.

You see, just like that six-year-old child at primary school in Glasgow, with the taunt of ‘Jew-bug’ thrown at me, it is as if I have passed that contagion to my kids. They are also afflicted.

Sure, for me, I am pleased to be Jewish. It is after all a major component of my identity, it features in the books I read, the films I watch, even sometime the music I play.

This is a fantastic heritage.

The remote bond that connects me to Feynman, Einstein and Auster has been a source of pride that I have worn, mostly hidden, for decades (Cultural tzitzit).

And yet, the angst, the anguish, the paranoia I would not have wanted to bequeath. The isolation, ‘It’s Christmas’ has never had the same resonance for me as ‘The Candles’.

Barch attah adoni, eloheynu melech halolam asher kidishanu bimitzvotav vitzivanu le-hadlik ner shel shabbat.

Being Jewish is being different, yet part of the crowd.

During Covid I talked to one of the directors at work about the risks to my contracting the infection. ‘The rules are for BAME only,’ he said.

I reflected.

Was I BAME?

Am I?

I am different enough for my genetic analysis to shout-out ‘Jew’ yet not enough to warrant special measures.

It’s a paradox that I have frequently Googled.

And Jews, that is me and my children are similar enough to blend into the milieu yet sufficiently different to be called-out, ‘Where you from? Greece? Spain? Yemen?’ I’ve had it all. These are microaggressions. Perhaps I am microscopically ethnic.

And it is this inheritance that I had not considered.

I had not thought I would pass on to my children the weight of being different.

The burden of being outside.

I am an outsider, a stranger if you will. My recent personality survey says so. And for many years I had not reflected on the why. I had not considered the risk of passing this on to my children.

Jew bug, they are infected.

And with the Jews, no one really bothers us if we keep quiet. That is what they thought when the Transport came to take them away. ‘Things are bad here (the ghetto), they can’t possibly be any worse, let’s see where this train takes us.’

And the story is wrought in pain.

And like I said yesterday, the world loves a dead Jew.

Look at the recent international Holocaust best sellers – dead Jews, so many you struggle to count; the Tattooist of Auschwitz, The Boy in the Stiped Pyjamas, The Book Thief.

Dead Jews, it’s such a laugh.

For reasons that are beyond my understanding the dead Jews of Be’eri, Sderot, Nachal Oz and Supernova haven’t registered in the consciousness of some.

Perhaps they have been reading the wrong news or accessing spoof websites.

Reading and absorbing the distorted information transmitted by the Guardian these days is bad enough, it is far removed from the clips shared on Tik Tok.

‘It’s all lies.’

So easy to call reality a lie.

Have you ever considered your own existence? Yet, the dolts who shout the twisted propaganda are unlikely to ever read my words.

Free Palestine.

Jews are Nazis.

Netanyahu is Hitler.

End the murder.

Some of the slogans I have seen. No innocent person should ever be killed. Unfortunately, it happens. That is war, that is what it is to be a human prepared to threaten the existence of another, in your actions, you sign a contract accepting your preparedness to accept the deaths of your fellows, the unborn child, innocent beyond. It is part of your battle-plan.

If any of us, yes, you, peacenik, lover of fairness, singer of songs, waver of anti-Israeli flags, you or your country would respond in exactly the same way as Israel were there to have occurred a similar insult (is that too benign a word?)

I think of that poor guy who was arrested recently in Buckingham Palace. He was on his way to kill the Queen. He’s been banged-up, his psychosis on the side-lines.

15 equivalents of 9/11 and Israel is expected to play nice. To let the rockets fall and get on with it.

If there was one missile fired into the UK from another country, with intent to kill, that would likely precipitate a military response. The death of one man, the Archduke led to World War One. Imagine tens of thousands of missiles.

‘You get used to them after a while,’ my brother said yesterday, referring to the missile alerts.

Inured to bombs falling. Imagine. And Israel is meant to hold back.

An equivalent number of murders in the UK, as happened in the South of Israel would be around 15,000 people.

Me and every person I know, and every person they know wiped out in a frenzied slaughter and my country should turn the other cheek.

As if.

No.

Sorry, this is Jewish exceptionalism.

It is OK for any other country to defend itself, not Israel.

It is OK to maintain strict borders, not Israel.

It is OK for the Australians to unanimously vote against the rights of their indigenous peoples, and no one calls the Ozzie’s racists. They don’t get the Apartheid slur.

No, no, the Jews are especially bad.

They control the media, the financial markets, the weather after all.

Last night I posted somewhere the reality that the easiest way to save the lives of Palestinians in the Gaza strip would have been first, not to murder Israelis – too late for that, and second best to return the people who have been kidnapped (World media has forgotten this calamity) (I dreamed of them last night. The men were stripped of their clothing and beaten.)

If that little ginger-haired boy and his family and the 200 others were freed, and ideally the dead bodies that the terrorists stole (Yes, Hamas are masters as trading in the dead), it would be impossible for Israel to invade, the pressure from the US would lead to a cessation.

Sure, it would prolong the stalemate, more missiles would arrive in Gaza (bypassing the food, medicine and school books that somehow can’t get in) and the threat would continue.

The world is pillorying Israel for the dead Palestinians in Gaza.

Israel has asked the people to move South.

Somewhere around 500,000 Israelis have been displaced because of threats in the North and the South. This is what decent societies do. In Gaza, Hamas have blocked the roads to stop the move.

And yet, the protests are against Israel.

They are the murderers.

Not the people who killed young men and women at the dance festival.

Come, on.

If a group of heavily armed men ran through Glastonbury, killing and maiming, would you move-on? Get over it and return to your everyday?

I need to move-on, yet I can’t.

I am caught, spinning.

Any thoughts? Any ideas?

Should I continue my silent scream?

I fear I am becoming repetitive.

I should switch to nicer things.

I have had some thoughts about personality and patient safety.

I can’t.

The image I carry is of being trapped in a sinking muddy pit. I try to climb out but keep slipping. As I grasp the sides, clods come away in my hands. Stuck. Trapped in the mud, laying at the bottom, in a pool of dirt.

Recent blogs have ended upbeat.

A little like the many of the blockbuster Holocaust books, they have a happy ending.

This can’t have a happy ending.

Whichever direction events unfold will lead to more tragedy.

There will be more lies spread about the murderous Israelis, there will be more threat directed at my people – my people being the Jews, the Israelis, the civilized of the world.

They will come for you next.

Darra Horn in her treatise on dead Jews describes some elements of 20^th Century Jewish Literature. A theme being, either no end to the narrative – the stories just stopping, for example at the gates of the Concentration Camp (nothing more need be said), or ending with possibilities left that you know are going to be unpleasant (Tevye’s family, what became of them?)

We love reading Kafka because he is trapped. He is overwhelmed by the questions that are not questions, by the trivialities that are routine. None of us would want to be Kafka.

For some, there is no alternative.

Two weeks, fourteen days (another one for Yael)

This is how it goes in Israel.

It is not necessarily days of the week,

More, days since that Saturday.

Whether it is valid to compare what happened in Israel, which has become 10/7 with 9/11 is moot.

You can’t compare suffering.

You can’t compare pain.

You can’t compare loss.

My pain and my grief and my shock are mine.

And yet, perhaps because it is only 14 days or perhaps because of the nature of the horrors that have been played-out real-time and continue to play, this is different.

My phone continuously pings with alerts about the situation in Israel. Thankfully today, there is a break in line with Shabbat, although allowed special dispensation from their rabbi to broadcast if something particularly terrible happens.

I switch from Instagram to the Times of Israel.

On, I have forgotten the days, perhaps Wednesday morning, I heard that the supposed attack on the hospital in Gaza was caused by a missile misfiring (or perhaps intentionally firing) from Islamic Jihadists. (Let’s avoid the counterfactuals).

I checked the Guardian and BBC; they were still reporting on the Israeli atrocity.

The fake media campaign released by Hamas had spread like wildfire and stuck like mud.

Mixing my metaphors; this is a mixed-up time.

I checked-in later with those news outlets and the story was unchanged.

Their news editors seemed content to broadcast what was patently a lie.

Channel 4 news used to be the accompaniment to my evening meal.

I can’t watch it.

If you are in the UK and do not have any bonds to Israel, you are neither Jewish, nor have you visited the country, you likely miss the subtleties, we call these microaggressions, some of which are large, for example, the BBC’s refusal to refer to Hamas as terrorists, preferring militants, and the networks’ happiness to embrace anti-Israel propaganda.

You might not see it, I feel it.

I’ve had to switch off.

My daughter has spent the past 14 days un-following people on Instagram. Turning off those she had thought were kind, caring or funny when they have revelled in Israel’s tragedy.

It is absolutely OK to accept the tragedy of the Palestinian People, it is not OK to ignore the tragedy of 14 days ago.

This week I unfollowed one person on Facebook and one on Twitter, I won’t say who it was on FB, I couldn’t cope with his open support for the terrorists; on Twitter I dropped Greta.

If people can’t see the difference between Israel and Hamas, they are blind and they will likely never see.

I don’t have the energy to rehabilitate their morality.

I mentioned last week that my children, in a reaching-out to their heritage have been baking challot.

Here is my daughter’s near-perfect creation.

I long ago gave-up on a belief in God; I let go of all the ceremony associated with Judaism. The Friday night Kiddush, the celebration of festivals, prayer, observance of Kashrut and all the rest.

I have never given-up on my Jewish identity.

Over the years my bookshelves have filled with the works of Roth, Auster, Kafka, Oz, Heller, Malamud, Grossman and others.

I have existed in a paradox.

My brother identifies as a humanistic Jew. Me, I am just a humanist who is a Jew.

And should you care?

Remember the Holocaust poem that includes the line, ‘And there was no one left’

This is perhaps at the heart of my confusion.

The way in which the left has adopted the Palestinian cause, which I also support, yet with this, a militant anti-Israel position. They refuse to buy Israeli or Jewish-related produce (dates) (they ignore iPhones, Waze, WhatsApp, or Facebook).

I won’t tell you all the ways in which Israel and its people have influenced the world for the better – disproportionately in its 75 years and for the size of its population; If you want to learn more, you can read Noa Tishbi’s book.

And, does that matter?

Not really.

Does it matter that I was anxious going to the supermarket last week to buy my symbolic Voorsht, worrying that there would be a band of BDSers outside? Does it matter that my son has been isolated from his student community because of the anti-Israel protests where he lives? Does it matter that I feel the need to lock my doors and check they are locked, the long thread of existential trauma passed to me through the generations.

Trauma upon trauma.

It isn’t Jenga, it some other game with perversity at its core.

Fourteen days.

Not quite to the hour when the horror began.

Last night I listened to two men from Zaka, the Jewish body retrieval people.

They described some of what they saw.

And the protesters rally against Israeli and its inhumane army.

If the Israeli army is inhumane, words do not exist to describe Hamas and, indeed, listening to the radio, the broadcasters on GLZ have struggled, they don’t want to describe them as animals, for their acts were worse than bestial, they don’t want to say inhumane as that suggests an association with humanity. They have called them Nazis and even the Nazis for all the horror they wrought, had the decency to pretend, to ‘herd’ the Jews into the gas chambers under the illusion they were going for a shower, naked and stripped of their belongings, their identify, their clothes.

No, not these entities. Families tied and tortured. Were the children tortured in front of the parents then killed or the reverse? Will we ever know (it is likely on video somewhere), do we want to know, does it matter?

I am reading Dara Horn’s book, Everyone Loves a Dead Jew.

She begins describing Anne Frank’s experiences.

She imagines an alternate future had the girl lived to become a woman.

Yes, the world loves a good dead Jew.

Cynical and sad.

I can imagine readers thinking, no, not true.

And yet, I go back to the hospital.

Donniel and Yossi discussed the hospital on their podcast.

‘When I heard the hospital had been hit and 500 innocent people killed, I knew it was over, I knew Israel had lost,’ so said Donniel.

‘When I heard the news, I looked at the source – Hamas and knew to pause,’ replied Yossi, a seasoned journalist. (The podcast is available here.)

The news went-out that 300 people had died within seconds of the explosion (not on the hospital it transpired, rather its carpark), then 500. ‘Do you know how long it takes to identify 500 bodies in such a situation? The timing was wrong,’ Said Yossi, and so, it was.

And the world embraced the lies and instantaneously there were (even more) protests against Israel.

The anti-Hamas or pro-Israel demonstrations were markedly absent 14 days ago.

And the Arab media have stuck to the 500 story. They have not reversed their headlines. (The reality being, the rocket was a mis-fire from Gaza to Israel, the numbers killed in the car park are uncertain, possibly as many as 50. None of which diminishes the tragedy – it reinforces the libel.)

They prefer to utilise the lie, rather than to accept the reality.

‘Don’t believe the Israeli Army, don’t believe the Jews.’

I believe them.

I believe them as much as I believe the news from other democracies.

Sure, there is nuance, yet the facts are the facts and I need facts and yet, millions of others appear to approach facts as somehow flexible, transmutable.

Yes, the narrative will shift; perhaps to all-out war across the Middle East, perhaps Russia and China will be drawn-in as have the Americans (overtly rather than covertly as with Ukraine) and that will be it.

This is the way the world ends not with a bang, but a whimper.

All because of the Jews.

If we had no Jews, there would be no need for blood libels (the hospital) no need for pro-Palestinian protests (‘Palestine’ would never have ended-up an Iraq or Syria or Lebanon or Yemen), we would be living a perfect existence, well, not me, I wouldn’t be, I would have been wiped out and the world can get on with itself without the Jews.

That is at least how it feels.

The disproportionate Jewish influence on the world.

We might be 0.2% of the world population, yet we are responsible for 100% of the ills.

I know this is absurd, and yet, it is central to the belief systems of millions.

I don’t anticipate this will change soon.

I also don’t anticipate the Jewish people are going anywhere anytime soon.

Remember the Moabites and the Edomites, the Phoenicians, and the Amalekites? You might not, because they have all gone and we have persisted.

Sorry guys, me and my fellow Jews and Israel and Israelis are here to stay. We (that is Israel) was here before you (UK/Canada/Brazil/take your pick) and we are carrying-on. We will overcome. We will innovate our way out of disaster. We will unfollow, we will un-friend if we need to, our need to survive trumps all the niceties of social media, all the United Nations denouncements. Shout your head off Mr Guterres we aren’t listening. We will triumph. We will not become sour, we will not become haters, we will continue to live and to thrive and to smile and to laugh.

As a youth I remember singing ‘We shall overcome’ in Hebrew and Arabic.

You see, despite the headlines, Arabs, that is Muslims and Christians and Jews are and can be friends, and do get on, they coexist. Where do they co-exist in a more meaningful way than anywhere else in the world; yes, Israel.

Don’t believe the headlines.

Look beyond.

Most of us (that is humans) are good. Some are stupid, some are misled, some are disinterested, yet, we shall overcome.

When words are inadequate, emotions overwhelm

I’m struggling to begin,

to find the words.

My usual strategy

for blog initiation,

Particularly at times of uncertainty

short

sentences.

They seem to unlock something inside me.

They make accessible

the

hidden,

The locked away.

And,

Yesterday

I spoke with my brother.

He had been changing the filters in his bomb shelter.

Let’s unpack that.

30 years ago,

Saddam Hussain

Fired rockets at Israel from Iraq.

He threatened chemical warfare,

and the citizens of Israel (Jew/Muslim/Christian/Atheist)

(Gay/Straight/Trans/Binary and Non)

Were issued gas masks.

I can remember the conversations with my brother as to what he would do for his little children if the canisters fell.

Yes, GAS MASKS.

Remember Zyklon B?

Perhaps you have forgotten. Perhaps you never knew.

Look it up.

Last week, I wrote about trauma.

Trauma is the lettering in Blackpool Rock that runs through the heart of every Jew, every Israeli.

And yes, the Palestinians are traumatised too.

Trauma does terrible things.

It makes you behave in ways that are alternate to your intentions.

It makes you crazy.

I haven’t listened to Blindboy in a few weeks.

He previously announced that the Irish people, themselves traumatised from centuries of tyranny naturally side with the Palestinians. He even announced once that he doesn’t have a SodaStream as it is an Israeli Company (it’s not, although it once was).

What would you think Blindboy if I said I don’t drink Guinness as it’s an Irish beverage associated with a country that supported the IRA?

You would think I am stupid. Perhaps you don’t buy Israeli dates from Waitrose either.

It is this level of ignorance, (who works in the SodaStream factories in Israel and the West Bank?) (I’ll give you a clue, the sign on the door doesn’t say ‘No Arabs’).

And, amidst this naïveté, thousands demonstrated took to the streets of major cities in the UK and US yesterday. I am sure they protested down Berlin, Amsterdam, and Rome high streets too.

Freedom for the Palestinians.

Yes, I too want the Palestinians to be free. I would also like the Israeli and other hostages held in Gaza to be free.

I wouldn’t march down the high-street with a banner expressing as much. I would perceive that as provocative.

The marchers I imagine (Were you one of them, dear reader? I hope not) want to provoke.

Yesterday, after talking about dysfunctional bomb shelters my brother mentioned something that one of his friends had explained,

‘The Persians invented the game of chess; this is chess. Sderot, Re’im and Nachal Oz were the first moves, Saudi Arabian withdrawal from talks with the Israelis was a subsequent play.

And the demonstrators yesterday or the moron who climbed up City Hall in Sheffield last week to remove the Israeli flag don’t get it.

Perhaps he and his pals are too stupid.

F. Scott Fitzgerald said that intelligence is being able to hold two contradictory thoughts or ideas in your head at the same time.

I suspect, in many of these situations intelligence is lacking.

‘Free Palestine,’ is easy.

Harder to reconcile the innocent men and women, old and young, the children, babies included who were tortured then slaughtered by the terrorists eight days ago.

When you begin a game of chess the end cannot be predicted.

There are too many variables even for the grandest of grand masters.

The Iranian government (Persians) didn’t need to drop an atomic bomb for people to attack Israel. They merely weaponised their proxy and let things play-out.

Iran didn’t need to worry that their enemy (Saudi) would join Israel as the ripples of consternation within the Arab world from the inevitable Israeli response to the atrocities were adequate.

Just think, the Ayatollah brought the protesters out yesterday.

He also kills women who refuse to wear head coverings and men and women who are gay.

That’s just the way it is.

That’s OK.

Has the world forgotten about Nazanin?

Is kidnapping the way ahead?

If I don’t get what I want I will take what is yours and hold it until you give-in.

Is that the game they want to play?

I don’t know whether the Persians invented chess, they are likely masters of the craft.

This morning, waking early, I wanted to write and write.

For, you see, writing is my therapy.

It is hard to write when the thoughts in your head are so disturbed.

Last week was, the hardest in my life.

My sense of powerlessness.

Fecklessness.

A review of my life conducted whilst portraying a professional front.

Last week I smiled. I felt guilty.

I visited my patients in their homes.

Their TVs were tuned to the usual daytime stuff.

Me, I’ve had to switch the TV off.

I can’t stand the news.

I can’t stand the BBC and Channel 4 position of fair reporting.

The image in my mind is of last Sunday when people were both discovering the nature of the atrocities and still fighting for their lives was the journalist showing pictures of occasional bombs falling in Gaza.

The UK mainstream media’s refusal to call the men who murdered the children terrorists is galling.

As I said, holding contradictory perspectives is OK.

Black and white as the newscast prefer, I can’t do.

And,

There is so much I cannot or will not write,

Either because my thoughts are too dark

Or because the narrative has not yet played-out in my head.

It’s OK to be sad.

It’s OK to be angry.

It’s OK to feel isolated and alone and victimised.

All of these are the human condition.

Political scientist Micah Goodman described it well in his interview with Amanda Borshel-Dan.

What we feel now will not be forever.

Emotions are impermanent.

Transitory

Illusory

This pain will not last forever.

On Friday night,

I joined my local Jewish community for a session of reflection and prayer.

We said the Kaddish.

At first, I thought the old man leading the service was confused.

‘Does he mean Kiddush?’

Kiddush is the Friday night blessing of the bread and wine.

No, he meant Kaddish, the ancient prayer for the dead.

Life goes on and the contradictions are overwhelming.

Last night

At Sheffield City Hall,

My wife and I listened to the Halle.

This was my first exposure to live classical music in over a decade.

At first, I had the illusion that the instruments were not real, that the sound was coming from speakers, electronically generated.

This,

The peak of human accomplishment,

The connection, collaboration of an orchestra, the ability to conjoin people and their instruments into a perfect whole is at the top of our sophistication.

Sophistication and depravity.

As the music played, my mind wandered to the Warsaw Ghetto, playing as the strangle-hold was tightened.

My thoughts lead me down darkened streets.

And, just as the protests in Sheffield and Manchester were dissimulations of the Iranian game, my coming together with fellow Jews was a consequence.

Both my children, unbidden baked challot on Friday night.

The braided, sweet Jewish bread we eat with salt during the Kiddush.

The ripples are unknowable.

And if you listen to Micha’s interview you will hear him describing the reality that played out yesterday and tomorrow.

The so-called zero-sum game of fear and love.

Israelis want the world, that is Holland and France and Germany to love them. They want to sing in the Eurovision and stand beside the other developed nations of the world and yet, they also want the terrorists, in the north and the south, in Iran and Syria and Qatar to fear them.

Love and fear cancel one another out and you are left with nothing.

Micha called on us to break this equation.

I don’t know how to do it.

I know the love of humanity.

I know the raised eyebrows of the Kippah Aduma felafel worker in Ra’anana as I tell him to put on extra ‘charif’ (hot) on my daughter’s pitta. ‘Atah betuach?’ (are you sure?) he asks.

I remember my friends and I singing the Song of Peace (Shir Ha-Shalom).

If I am not for myself them who will be for me? Rabbi Hillel asks.

I must be for myself and my family and my friends and my people.

It is a simple calculus.

Go, go, and protest, feel you are making a difference. Tell me not to buy dates. Conflate dates with inhumanity.

Spend your time playing with your belly buttons. If it makes you feel better, go on, don’t let me stop you.

I’ll eat my Bamba.

And my vegan chicken soup (yes, such a thing is possible, I have done it).

I will carry the names of the murdered in my heart.

I will continue to wake, to fitfully dream.

I will wait for someone who can weigh the complexity of our world arrive, able to lead, to show the way, beyond the failed leadership who have guided us so far. I don’t want the Messiah; I don’t want the return.

I’ll make-do with a mortal who can hold the infinity of contradictions, who can weight right and wrong and can find common ground with those who would overwhelm us and take us to a higher level.

Claudius has been calling for this shift, this move in human consciousness for many years.

Now is the time

We need to leave behind our dolls and toys, the implements of our childhood, our innocence and embrace something more sophisticated.

Something approaching Beethoven but more.

An orchestral manoeuvre beyond the everyday.

Thank you for listening.

War – should you care?

Is it more appropriate during such times to turn on the TV and enjoy The Bake-off or Strictly than tune-in to Israel Army Radio (Galei T’Zhahal)?

I’ve been struggling, and that is nothing.

Imagination is the worst of it.

How can they kidnap and hold hostage babies and old men and women?

How can they murder babies, whole families?

Shooting-dead partygoers.

I worry about my children.

My son lives in Bristol, which is a hot bed of anti-Israel sentiment. At my daughter’s school, over the years there have been undercurrents of hatred of Israel or anti-Zionism and by inference and association, Antisemitism.

What should they say when they see the Palestinian flag paraded down the street? When people, those fig-protestors and others argue that Israel and its people has got what it had coming.

The bodies, the body bags are what they deserve.

I listened yesterday to the description of one man who, inside his bomb shelter, the door would not lock. On the other, a terrorist pushing, trying to force the door, intention to murder the man and his wife. Can you imagine, forcing a door against a murderer? We see these things on TV in fiction, in movies, in real life this was the reality on Saturday.

Another woman described their grief at the lack of knowledge or information. Where is my son, my dad, my sister?

A 91-year-old man and his Philippine carer have been taken hostage. Is that preferable to the 91-year-old and his or her carer, shot dead? Bullets messing their bodies.

And what of the babies who are too young to understand? Have they been separated from their mothers, ‘Surely not,’ you think, you, that is, person coming from a place of humanity of rationality, ‘No, they will keep the women safe, they will let the babies have food and access to drink.’

These are the thoughts of the civilized. Nothing can be guaranteed.

I imagine the children, maybe eight or nine, old enough to know what is going on, numbed, perhaps caged, certainly bound, and likely gagged and the trauma that will mark them for the remainder of their lives.

I think of that old woman on golf buggy, taken across the sands.

‘Why don’t they just kill me?’ She is perhaps thinking, ‘Why do this?’

(Did they take her Apixaban, Insulin, Ramipril?)

This morning a father of a murdered soldier, one of the first to die, described his son. ‘I know it is irrelevant, I just want to say how beautiful he was, blue eyes and brown hair and wonderful smile.’ The soldier, who is yet to be buried was serving in Nahal, a non-combat unit where soldiers spend their service time in voluntary work. My sister spent two years in Nahal back in the mid 80’s.

Last night, I woke at two and checked the news.

It is hard to understand my relationship to Israel. Well, not for me.

My connection to the land runs deep. To my side is a lump of salt I took from the shores of the Dead Sea when I visited with my children a few years ago. Salt crystals growing from a section of rusted iron cable. It sheds flakes of Dead Sea minerals which I hoover every couple of months.

I look around and all the elements from my past coalesce. A photo of my dad, his arm around my mum in the garden of their old flat in Glasgow, me and my grandfather, during my time in medical school, him tanned from a summer sitting in the garden of the retirement home, me prisoner-pale from medical studies, and beside that my great-uncle Woolfie, soldier in World War I, in uniform, arms crossed, his feet firmly on the ground.

Memories, fragments of the past, of who I am and the horror of the moment.

The largest American naval fleet ever dispatched to the Mediterranean is en route.

Usually in these events, including the wars of the past, America and France and the UK have stood-by, not wanting to commit, not wanting (like Corbyn, perhaps) to offend the supporters of Hamas.

The gloves are off. This is war.

This is Iran fighting Israel, this is tyranny versus humanity. This is a proxy war, more deadly than that of Syria with all its repercussions (remember Brexit? That was just one small outcome of Syria, which was the US versus Russia and China, World War played out through the lives of innocents).

Today they announced 700 Israelis dead. Not Jews, I want to emphasise. Mixed into that morass of humanity will be Jews and Christians, Muslims, Druze, and Atheists. Germans, French and Americans are either dead or missing.

I imagine the Philippine carer puzzled that murderous hostage taking wasn’t what they anticipated when boarding a plane to travel from Manila to Tel Aviv.

And you too will be affected.

The assault on Gaza has not begun

It will happen.

There will be dead Palestinian children too.

Not directly targeted like those in Israel. There will not be whole families intentionally killed, but the fallout from war, the missile silo sheltering in family A or B’s balcony, or roof space will not be spared. There will be young women and men pulled out of rubble and their bodies will be paraded on You Tube or whatever social media will host them, and they will provoke anger in the West and Imams will call for Jihad and it will be a mess.

And this is the plan.

This is the puppet-masters in Iran taking pride in the success of their planning.

No peace with Saudi, they rejoice.

Iran did not like the Abraham Accords, where Israel made peace with the UAE and Bahrain in 2020.

A Saudi and Israel peace-treaty is considered unholy. Haram. And desperate times require desperate actions you might say.

And the body bags, lie in refrigerated containers.

How do you identify your son or daughter without looking upon the massacred face of another? I imagine a death process where stunned parents sift through digital images of the murdered. Too horrible to consider.

And, as I wring this cloth, express my feelings I think of my niece. Her husband called-up to fight. She is pregnant with their second baby.

Intergenerational trauma. They are a survivor family.

Yes, two generations separated from the Holocaust.

‘That’s in the past,’ you might think.

It isn’t.

And the man and woman I wrote about yesterday, stunned, in unbelieving silence as their children engage the terrorists, enquiring why their 18-year-old sister was shot, trying, in child-like simplicity to rationalise the finality of death and, as if that was not bad enough, their transport – and this a loaded word, to Gaza.

Another mother on the radio yesterday described her efforts to communicate with her son. ‘His phone was last seen somewhere in Gaza.’ Says it all.

The uncertainty is worse than the fact.

That is why they not only kidnapped kindergarten children but bodies too. They hold the living and the dead hostage.

And I think of the nine- or ten-year-old children distant from all of that, perhaps somewhere in the north of Israel, accessing the horror on their phones. A quick Google or tap of the un-censored X and they are allowed access to the worst depravity.

In ancient times hand-to-hand combat was considered the most brutal form of fighting, taking its toll physically and psychologically on the slayer and the slain. Firing a missile and killing someone you don’t know or see is one thing. Staring into the eyes of a victim (an innocent, old woman, for example) before you end her life, before you disconnect her from her family is another level of brutality.

I know that people will argue that the Hamas are brutal because they have been brutalised by Israel.

Since 2005 they have been left to their own devices. Granted independence and autonomy they have not been brutalised except by the episodic retaliation to multiple rockets fired into Israel.

Imagine if you will, Glastonbury. Take a thousand masked and armed men and let them shoot dead everyone they see. Let them kill the babies and the mothers as they queue for juice or a hot-dog, or rest in the shade. Imagine. Imagine. It is not possible to imagine.

And all my anxieties and fears coalesce. The worst has happened. Although, as we know, there is always room for more.

Suffering is infinite and so is horror.

Our imaginations are bottomless pits.

And so, please do not tell me that ‘they brought it upon themselves’ or ‘that is what happens when you oppress a people,’ don’t come at me with post-hoc rationalisations and analyses for the brutality of the dispossessed.

The twenty-year blockade of Gaza that protesters have been demanding to end was only a façade. A patina beyond which anything of any shape or calibre was passed. Only, not books or learning, and not religious or gender equality, not rights for LGBTQ people, was slipped underneath gaps in the fence or hidden inside the baby milk and diapers.

I will pull you from your car and murder you. That is the mentality that is dominant in Iran, and it is what is practiced in Gaza.

If you are gay, we will kill you.

If you seek democracy, we will kill you.

If you engage with the Israelis, we will kill you.

We know how to kill.

And they have killed and continue to kill.

And the machine that maintains the life of the baby or the little old lady in the intensive care unit at Kaplan Medical Centre in Rehovot, the alarms that beep, the tubing supplying fluids, or adrenaline to maintain blood pressure and life and the antibiotics that attempt to fight the wounds infected by destroyed flesh, are the alarms for the world.

We are all on the brink.

It is hard to imagine the outcome.

Today, the 9^th of October 2023, is the hottest period in recorded history. Outside 17 degrees in Yorkshire. It should be seven or eight.

And the cars drive past spewing CO2, and the government invests in oil-rigs and it is hard not to become despondent.

And this, I will not accept.

And this, the people in Israel will not allow.

For all their months of protest against the government, the people of Israel have more in common, more that keeps them together than pulls them apart. Even with the ugly ones, the black-hatted fatsos, we have a commonality, a shared humanity.

For all that separates us, there is more that brings us together.

You, me, we do not naturally gravitate towards the darkness.

We will overcome this.

We will save the children and the old men and women and the nursing mothers and the yet to be born babies, we will save the planet, we will come together and support one another, we will listen, we will care, we will respect. We will allow our inner compass to point towards what is right and good. We will not give-in. We will not accept the tragedy, the devastation. There is always more we can do as individuals and as a society to mop-up, to clean the dirt to push back the haters, the transgressors, those who value profit or money over kindness and care. We will win. We will succeed. We will overcome.

Horror.

I had different plans

for today’s blog.

The swimming has switched

from summer to wintertime hours

& that means,

Instead of a 7 or 8am start on Saturday and Sunday I have an hour extra to my day.

Here I am.

I had plans.

It all fell apart yesterday.

‘Have you heard the news?’

My daughter asked.

After yesterday’s dog walk then blog, I went back to bed.

Have you heard the news is not the way to start the day.

It’s like the, ‘I have some sad news,’ phone call when you announce to a sibling someone in the family had died.

Ironically, it foreshadowed yesterday’s blog and Out, Out…

The knowledge that black-clad men from Gaza had over-run the border fence into Israel and invaded and were at large in Israel said it all.

It said what I have perceived for years,

It said what the people in Israel have anticipated in their darkest moments,

It is not what the white middle-class liberals standing outside Waitrose demanding I shouldn’t purchase Israeli dates know.

Hamas, the organisation which is a proxy for Iran isn’t interested in peace.

There is no Israel-Gaza Peace Now.

You can’t make peace with someone whose solitary interest is in destroying you.

‘End the blockade’ they shout.

The blockade that makes the lives of ordinary Gazans a misery, that stops the construction of libraries, schools and hospitals, the blockade that despite its nature, halting the movement by air, land, and sea of the elements needed to build a democracy has allowed thousands of rockets, machine guns and military equipment to pass, has allowed tonnes of cement and other building materials (the schools? Creches? Hospitals?) to be turned into miles of tunnels slithering, serpiginous underneath the Middle-Eastern sand. Another allusion to yesterday.

And as soon as it was known that Hamas were free to do as they wished within the borders of Israel, the rest was inevitable.

Supporters of Hamas troll the internet for the one or two incidents of Israeli soldiers breaking the laws of war and abusing Palestinians. Yes, it happens, Israelis, in case you forgot are humans and fuck-ups occur. This is not the philosophy of the nation or the army, it is not their raison d’etre. It is not their anthem. They don’t wake in the morning and proclaim death to the Arabs or the Palestinians or anyone for that matter.

When rockets are fired to Gaza from Israel, individualised and meticulous attempts are made to avoid non-combatant casualties. This is how it is in civilization. That Hamas building you saw yesterday destroyed by Israel? They provided an evacuation warning first.

The haters, the provocateurs of loathing promote this, child murder, as intentional, it is not, for Israel at least.

Civilian casualties are not the goal.

And for Hamas, ‘don’t buy Israeli dates,’ the opposite has been and is the reality.

I know, yes, me, Scottish-Israeli, Jewish doctor living in Yorkshire, knows, if they had the choice, they would kill me or take me hostage too.

I would be an asset alive – imagine Rishi Sunak being pulled into the negotiations.

I think of Daniel Pearl, ‘I am a Jew’ before the Islamic State removed his head live on TV.

I carry images of Nazis moving house to house, murdering, slaughtering.

In the summer I had scoffed at the decorative iron grilles on my brother’s downstairs windows, the Rav-Bariach door (complex and steel lined used in many Israeli homes) – why all the security? I wondered. You saw the Hamas soldiers kicking down the doors of homes in Sderot and the kibbutzim and spraying the innocents indiscriminately with bullets, men, women, girls, babies, all dead.

I think of the Nazi ripping the baby from her mother’s arms and dashing its brains out.

We are a traumatised people, and this is another layer of trauma.

The is a fresh coat of horror.

It is the end of hope for a withdrawal from the West Bank – Sorry Abu Hamza, one crazed, authoritarian group on our doorstep is enough. Oh, I forgot Lebanon, let’s say two. No, no, Syria. Three. Three is enough.

Don’t buy the dates, ban, divest, sanction.

The Apartheid Zionist state must be stopped.

Enough with the rhetoric.

You can’t use rhetoric when live-streamed images of girls terrorised by gangs of men in black enter a living room.

When the family, with the two young children trying to rationalise the murder of their sister and the parents shell-shocked, the mother covering her younger daughter, as a human shield as more rockets land.

Incidentally, human-shield, offering your life to save that of your child or another is a perversion adopted by Hamas. They shield themselves by exposing the young and most vulnerable to the line of fire. ‘That primary school looks like a great place to launch a rocket,’ they think and do, and act and the repercussions are part of their calculus.

And those taken captive know all of this. They know their lives are possibly over, they know their existences are held in a precarious balance.

Will Hamas torture? I spoke to my brother yesterday; he too is in the line of fire. He didn’t think so. Perhaps he doesn’t want to think. Are there things worse than death? Yes, I know, trust me, I am a doctor, I have seen things.

Death is the end; the journey is unpredictable.

Most humans, like mammalian prey enter a state of shock at such moments – there is only so much anxiety an individual can contain. This protective state is a balm, before death. And, for those who are potentially rescued, pulled out of the tunnels of Gaza, what of their future? Trauma that is difficult to overcome, trauma added to trauma.

That is enough.

I want to limit TV watching, I want to stay away from social media and the unpredictable, uncensored horror it contains, the sinister mix of ‘X’ blend of fake news and diabolical rhetoric.

There is no point in wishing for peace now.

There is too much happening and anticipated to happen in the coming weeks and months.

All we can do is pray.

And when there is no god, well, accept our existence and check the bonds you have with your family and friends. Don’t hope for Middle Eastern peace, do what you can, think of your neighbour, your sibling, reach-out in kindness, realise that the petty follies of envy, the squabbles of inefficiency, avarice and greed are all meaningless when the reality of the finitude of our lives is made apparent.

With love.

For want of iron my blood was low.

In 1978 the American writer, Susan Sontag described in her book ‘Illness as Metaphor’ the language people at the time used in relation illnesses, particularly cancer and earlier TB.

When I was young, several of my parent’s friends died prematurely of cancer (Sidney, Leslie, Ivor, I remember you guys). At the time, the stigma associated with cancer was such that it was only passingly referred to as ‘The Big C’ – to say cancer was to somehow denigrate the individual as if it reflected a moral or existential failing on their part to have acquired such a thing.

Subsequently, in 1989 Sontag wrote ‘AIDS and its Metaphors’ applying the same analysis to the condition at that time.

What is the theme?

It was incurable, potentially inexplicable illness that given the fear, allowed a cult of stigma to arise. As if dying of cancer or AIDS was a reflection of your character, reflecting a shortcoming not in your genetic or lifesyle choices (possibly) but your morality.

I vividly remember, it was 1986, my friend Jake at school in Israel showing me his water bottle.

In those days, during the very hot late spring and early summer, the schoolchildren would run to the taps after lessons or perhaps following a game of basketball, to rehydrate.

The taps were a long line of outside taps, maybe 10 in total where we would drink, mouth to spout, supping the over-chlorinated water.

Jake announced that given the risk of AIDS, his parents didn’t want him drinking from the taps.

I didn’t understand, I continued drinking.

A few years later, I remember someone telling a joke about pizzas and the way they were delivered to people in hospitals.

I never understood that either, which was at the time and now looking back, an offensive and stigmatising interpretation of illness.

If you had to ask me what the bogey man in today’s healthcare metaphor it would be mental health in general and dementia in particular.

For a year or two Covid was the spectre, less so now.

TB has treatments (if you can get them) and cancer, depending on the type and the stage is also very often curable. HIV/AIDS has become a chronic condition – someone recently told me that the life expectancy of someone with HIV/AIDS was longer than the average population as the patients are so closely monitored and have such good healthcare (in the UK) – I don’t know if that is true (I can’t find the evidence).

We understand so much more these days about health and disease, some of us, although not all, take an approach to the news ‘I have cancer’ as being another of life’s challenges, for others, it things fall apart.

I don’t have cancer.

As far as I know.

This is the story I wanted to tell.

I tried writing about it a few weeks ago but did not manage.

It is a question of my age, my lifestyle and my veganism.

A month ago I contacted my GP to request some routine blood tests.

I am 50 and it felt the thing to do.

Those of you familiar with the Bromiley ‘Just a Routine Operation’ will sense the Chekovian device.

And so, my bloods.

I was pleased to see that my last year of regular exercise, abstinence from alcohol and all animal products (except honey, sorry bees) had lowered my cholesterol and kept my Hba1c significantly under the diabetes threshold (a family risk factor).

From work at home, I know my blood pressure is normal.

Great.

My thyroid is even ticking-over as it should, maintaining my metabolic homeostasis.

My blood count, that is haemoglobin was however a little low. Something like 125 instead of 126.

Being one-off normal is not the end of the world although for an otherwise healthy guy who runs, swims, cycles a lot as well as consuming lots of food it gave me pause. Even being on the lower limit of normal might have been a surprise. Shouldn’t all this activity be boosting my Epo levels, elevating my haemoglobin (Hb)? (A 140 or 145 would have made me happy)

It caught my GPs eye.

‘Your blood count is low,’ She said.

She actually, like me, started off with my cholesterol and Hba1c, using the same strategy I employ – reassure the patient before you tell them the bad news.

‘I am a vegan,’ I said to her.

She didn’t appear to hear me. I repeated.

‘You see, I have not had any meat for almost a year. I can be lazy with my diet. Not enough leafy vegetables.’ She didn’t hear any of this.

‘I think you need some tests,’ we agreed.

And so.

Here I am.

Before I go on, I’ll apologise for over-sharing.

I did think to keep this to myself. I also thought, writing tends to help me process, so it is beneficial to me, also, I suspect some of my readers have had or will have a similar experience.

What’s the big deal?

As I doctor, I know the statistics.

I am not very old therefore cancer is less likely although we are programmed by evolution to see the dark shaded rope as a snake, we tend to go to the worst case scenario first.

Other tests are pending.

It could be an ulcer. Maybe a polyp. It could be a spurious sample.

I have been focusing on this being a dietary failing.

Regular readers will know I have been on a health-kick for a while, to get my weight under control.

I’ve lost around 15Kg.

I’m losing weight.

For the most, at least in my experience, people with cancer tend to lose weight from two components, first, cancer itself causes anorexia – a medical term that means you don’t want to eat, you lose your sense of hunger, foods nauseate you, second, the cancer itself which is highly metabolic or catabolic (breaking down your body) uses lots of energy that might otherwise be stored in fat cells.

My appetite remains healthy. I don’t know about super-charged mutant cells.

My weightloss has been intentional – the diet, intermittent fasting and so on.

There are lots of variables.

And so, I am waiting.

More tests.

I have started to eat green-leafy vegetables – Cavolo nero, broccoli, spring greens, spinach and kale have all been on the menu this week. I bought some iron supplements (which I know might skew future results, but why not – I thought, if I could boost my Hb, I might run better; I was running better until last Sunday and the slippery path (see last week’s blog).)

I ordered some multi-vitamins from the Vegan Society ‘Veg1’ they are called.

I am doing what I can.

Yesterday two people at work said, ‘Have you lost weight?’ Previously when I had been asked I took this as a complement – my hard work paying-off, now I wasn’t too sure. Is this cancer chic? Am I wasting?

What are my metaphors? Uncertainty.

Recently, a patient told me that he was very worried, waiting for the result of a scan.

I informed him he had cancer.

Strictly I should have kept him waiting for the multidisciplinary or the requesting team to tell him at his as yet to be arranged appointment (this is one of the things doctors still do face-to-face, >breaking bad news< rather than the age-of-Covid phone consultations, ‘How much chest pain? How much does your arm shake? Where does it hurt?’)

At the time I was split.

Do I tell him or do I pretend I don’t have access to the result.

He was with his family and was asking me directly. It felt wrong to pretend.

Breaking bad news is never easy.

Two weeks ago I watched a short lecture from breast surgeon, Liz O’Riordan who described her own breast cancer journey.

‘When the doctor comes into the room with a specialist nurse, you know it is bad news,’ one of her patients had told her. At the time of her appointment, she saw the specialist nurse and all was clear to her, like those lines from Robert Frost’s Out, Out -.

She foresaw the next steps, the tests the pre-ops, the nights in hospital, chemo, radiotherapy and so on.

Knowing too much can be bad.

Likely, not as bad as knowing too little. Information is supposedly power.

And yet.

My patient’s grand-daughter asked him if he could see the results on the app, ‘We don’t have internet he explained,’ (I was surprised the grand-daughter even suggested this – perhaps it was the shock.)

This was another part of the health and social care jigsaw. Digital exclusion.

I am digitally included which I suppose is good (these days in the UK you can get the results of tests direct to your phone before the doctor has seen them).

And I blame the Tories.

They are an easy scapegoat.

I am reading Kate Atkinson’s , ‘Started Early, Took My Dog’ – she has a recurring motif, ‘for want of a nail,’ this is an allusion to the poem. For want of a nail the shoe was lost…

For want of a decent government, there was a failing health service, for want of a failing service there were not enough doctors and nurses, for want of enough doctors, there was a delay in diagnosing and operating and recovery…

I will keep you updated.

Lulav, etrog and suddenly a turned ankle.

Yesterday

As I ran through Wadworth Woods,

Just before a fantastical, head over heels slip on the mud,

triggered my Apple fall alarm >Rod would you like to call an ambulance?<

(logistics of the woodland obviated this possibility)

And twisted my ankle,

Limping to the nearest village

I smelled

My childhood.

The odour

Of the damp Sukkah

at Giffnock

Shul.

Yenta

Perfume

combined

with the body odours of ageing Survivors.

After the Saturday morning service

We would congregate

In the Glaswegian tabernacle,

With soft apples, bananas and oranges hanging from rafters

As Reverend Levy

Would shake his lulav and etrog,

Careful not to break the pitom.

Archaeologists argue that the absence of evidence for King David and Solomon in Iron Age Israel was their use of tents.

A nomadic people

Like the Bedouin of today,

They wouldn’t stay long in one place.

And this, matches the biological record –

We were wanderers.

Hunters and gatherers

Before we settled in towns and cities,

In the good old days,

Five or six hours of foraging or hunting

Then rest.

Rest and be done.

The Wandering Jew.

Jews have wandered the planet, expulsion followed by expulsion,

Blood libels and global conspiracies at their heels.

And I inhaled

The damp

of mud and mid-autumn leaf litter,

puddles

And fallen conkers

And yes, it will soon be winter.

Sounds like Kippot / duelling Yarmulkes and the Judicial Reform

If the title of today’s blog hasn’t thrown you too much I will continue.

I imagine for most of my readers outside of those living in Israel, the words Judicial Reform will have little meaning, within The Land, they are a big thing.

It has to do with the country’s narrow coalition between the Likud Party (led by Binyamin Netanyahu) and a gaggle of extreme ultra-Right-Wingers.

Together they are in the process of reforming the judiciary.

In Israel which is a Parliamentary Democracy, there are three branches to the government – the Executive, the Knesset (Parliament) and the Judiciary. The three balance each other through in-fighting and debate and have done so relatively successfully for 75 years.

In countries such as the UK, we have the House of Lords as our counter-balance, in the US, the House of Representatives, the Senate and the Constitution all ensure that the rights of the people are respected and those in power – government, can’t do whatever they want.

(Although Trump seemed to manage to manipulate the system to his ends – Roe vs Wade).

In Israel, the balancing-act over the past three quarters of a century has been supported by the Judiciary – the Supreme Court which for reasons that are beyond my understanding has been Left-Leaning for most of its existence (despite some Right-Wing* governments) and consequently has been a place of final appeal when the government or the courts step out of line.

I won’t go in to further detail about the Israeli political system as it is complicated and, let’s remember, I am just a medical doctor.

The current coalition have been trying for months to change the law, to dilute the Supreme Court’s power and remove its right to veto political decisions.

From some perspectives (the Right) this is great as it means true democracy (the Court aren’t elected and are independent of the government), opponents (estimates suggest up to 70% of the Israeli population) say that a Supreme Court in a country without a Constitution is a good thing, it is a safety-net for unmodulated extreme Right or Left (lots of damage can be done in a four year electoral cycle) governmental decisions.

Some of the current government’s Ultra-Right Wing aspirations are truly awful – doing-away with the rights of women (viz. Handmaid’s Tale) and LGBTQ+ people and worst of all, a complete take-over, annexation of the West Bank and the negation of an independent Palestine (with all its implications).

You need to be smarter than me to understand how such a government could form – I gather only twenty-odd per cent of the electorate voted for Likud; yet, Netanyahu has cobbled together a weak coalition which is the tail that wags the rightist dog.

The outcome of this have been the biggest and most prolonged (peaceful) demonstrations in Israel’s history.

Every Saturday night people gather across the country and protest. Millions have protested, camped-out and called for a halt to the changes.

If you look at the protests online you will see lots of Israeli flags, which is a conscious part of the Centre and the Left to ‘reclaim the flag’ which is out of synch with what happens in many other places e.g. the UK where the Union Jack is frequently an Imperial, Rightist symbol.

Anyway.

What a ramble.

And I haven’t even touched on Kippot.

The reason for the skull-cap mention was that yesterday I saw in my office one of my old Kippot. The word ‘Yarmulke’ is the traditional / Yiddish word for skull-cap (what I called them when I was young), Kippah (‘kippot’ is the plural) is the Hebrew version.

Here is a mine:

And this made me think.

You see, all the division, entrenched argument and protest in Israel has led to the Right (almost all religious Jews, often influenced by the US, Messianic in nature) and the Left (Labour, secular, liberal) becoming more extreme.

Recently, listening to the philosopher Micah Goodman on the Times of Israel Podcast, What Matters Now, with Amanda Borschel-Dan, he explained the three sides in the Israeli tensions.

The Left, the Right and those in the middle – the moderate religious Israelis and the secular Jews and Palestinians / Israeli-Arabs you might enounter sight-seeing in London, who realise that an occupied West Bank is untenable, who value Gay Rights and so on; this ‘middle’ is around 60% of the population.

Unfortunately, because of the system of proportional representation in Israel and the lack of consensus at the last election. the majority through their lack of cohesion led to the rule by a minority.

And so, the Left and Right are battling.

Some see this as an ominous sign, a national split – civil war similar to that which preceded the last Jewish Expulsion from Israel in 73 AD/CE. (During this period, described by Josephus, the Israel split into the Kingdom of Judah (Jerusalem and land to the south) and The Kingdom of Israel (everything else).

Division results in vulnerability and the Romans eventually (after a few hundred years) did their thing.

Anyway, Goodman sees this as boding well for the future, with the next government likely to be one of national unity, with Right and Left joining together. His belief is that for the sane majority, the middlers, there will be only one way to survive – through dialogue and collaboration.

All of this is taking me away from the Kippot.

If you visit Israel you will see men (and sometimes women) wearing Kippot.

And the duelling?

Well, there isn’t just one Kippah.

The Kippah has become a symbol of your religious and political affiliation.

Some, the extreme Right / Settlers wear knitted kippot that are oversized and cover the whole head (picture)

and some, were much smaller knitted kippot (viz Naftali Bennett),

others wear the old fashioned velvet- type (that I had as a kid, usually demonstrated in religious scenes in Adam Sandler movies) – a throwback to the past, to the days of the Yarmulke.

And, all are at war.

The Yarmulke is worn by secular Jews if visiting a synagogue – a mark of respect rather than devotion, the knitted kippot (large and small) are worn by Jewish men (not women!) all the time.

I know that most religions have their idiosyncrasies, it struck me when looking at my Kippah that most people would not be aware of this subtlety.

There are also the ‘Haredim’ – Ultra-Orthodox who when out and about wear big black fedoras or, in anger the Full-Jew Streimel (picture).

It takes one to know one.

If you look at the protests you will see mostly naked-headed Israelis (the majority (which includes Christians and Muslim Palestinians) as well as Druze, Bedouin and Armenians and others). Those wearing the kippot will be small and knitted.

Just so you know.

When I was in Israel a few years ago I was quite taken by the big knitted kippot and bought one from a shop in Jerusalem. I occasionally wear it out and about in Doncaster. I didn’t at the time realise its secondary meanings.

Maybe like wearing an orange T-Shirt walking through West Belfast.

We are symbolic animals.

Or so Dan Brown would have us believe.

Rest and Be Well.

Have a good week.

*As an aside, for those interested, in the UK and US, Right-Wing, traditionally means those in favour of the status quo, family values, religion, anti-immigration, low tax and the Left, the opposite. In Israeli politics, the Left and Right are more related to the philosophical stances of secularity, tolerance and a Palestine (Left) and the Right the opposite – the irony being, it is the Right who want to introduce the change and the Left in Israel who are in favour of the status quo. Go figure. It was Right-Wingers that got the UK into the Brexit mess. Perhaps they are all as bad as one another.

Rats, waterworks and system failure

The rats scratched, angry in the night.

Yesterday,

I watched a 14-year-old documentary,

Thinking it was new.

(Also wondering, hasn’t Stevie B aged well. Look at the muscles!)

On it,

Lost Land of the Volcano

The found a new species of rat.

I say ‘wild’ which you might think superfluous,

No one is going to find a new tame rat,

More so,

It was giant.

As big as a terrier

A meter long from snout to tail-tip.

The presenters affectionately stroked damp rainforest fur.

And yet,

It had never met a human.

Or, its ancestors had never encountered human hunters.

Like the dodo it lacked a fear of us.

I won’t say any more about the documentary, it is on the iPlayer.

It stood-out

In that all the participants were men.

I thought that odd.

Then again,

It was 2009.

A different world.

The other night we thought there might have been a rat scratching in our wall-space.

Hard to tell.

It was likely a creature of some sort.

Not a giant – there are few of them in South Yorkshire.

I recorded the sound; you can hear it by clicking below.

What I found interesting,

In that as I opened the ‘voice record’ app on my phone I was taken back to 2017.

An old audio file.

I called it ‘Need a wee.’

I recorded it on a ward in the hospital I was working at the time.

You can listen below.

You can hear my tapping on the computer keyboard. In the background, the hubbub of the ward and the lone voice of the patient, could I have a wee please.

I don’t want to make this more than it is.

Likely this was an older woman living >suffering< with dementia.

I say this because it is not uncommon for people who have dementia to repeatedly call-out in hospital. Anyone who has worked in hospital or been an inpatient will know this.

And, frequently, attending to that patient and offering the toilet or the commode will not result in them settling.

The can I have a wee is not actually a request for the toilet, it is something else – it might be, my back is in pain, or I am afraid, or I want my family, or, I don’t know where I am.

It is representative of an unmet need in someone who has lost the facility to articulate.

Take your pick.

There are infinite possibilities.

And yes, I am assuming this patient has dementia and I might be wrong, there could be something else, although knowing the system as I do I think I am right.

There are several healthcare concepts here – insight, capacity, institutionalisation, confusional state, empathy, care, and continence.

Continence is big.

It is one of those areas doesn’t get the limelight.

It isn’t cancer or heart disease or stroke or diabetes.

It is the little league of trendy healthcare issues and yet it is massive.

I won’t give you statistics although you, that is you reading this are likely, if you live long enough to encounter some form of incontinence – more frequently urinary and, yes, potentially faecal.

I used, in my medical student lectures (before I gave them up) to talk about continence, using as an illustration the famous painting, The Continence of Scipio as well as a discussion about the fate of women with obstertic fistulae; the former to explain the meaning of continence – restraint and the latter the consequences of incontinence, even for young productive women – becoming outcast.

I don’t know if the incidence of post-partum fistulae has reduced in Africa (I used to talk about a big fistula hospital in Ethiopia) (It’s still going) or whether it is still as an issue.

Continence in older people is big, it covers topics such as dependence and independence, pressure ulcers, care, and care homes; it can result in dehydration, renal failure, sepsis, falls and fractures, social isolation and death.

More money is spent on adult continence wear than nappies in the developed world.

And so, when reviewing a patient, I always enquire about continence.

For information, and, if you are a doctor or a nurse, asking a patient, ‘Do you wet your pants,’ rarely results in a meaningful response. Most of us are reserved about our waterworks and bowels. I find a more circumlocutory approach is more effective. (Have you ever had an accident… Or have you ever struggled to get to the toilet in time…)

In our Person-Centred Training Day that I have written about before one of my colleagues gives the example of her encounter with a disheartened female patient who the day before arriving in hospital had been independent and active, running her life, tending the garden, the lawn and caring for her grandchildren like many other 80-year-olds, and with her arrival in hospital, asked her for a pad.

‘Do you have problems with your waterworks?’ My colleague asked.

‘No, not usually, although now I am in hospital, I know I will need to use a pad.’

This sad insight, that, as she is now a hospital inpatient, there will be no one to help her to the (often distant) toilet, she will struggle with a bed pan if offered and even if she wants to go to the toilet herself she will not be able- the bed too high, raised cot-sides, the toilet too far or occupied or blocked.

And so, you might call this voluntary incontinence.

It is a sad reflection on our society – it is a critique of the NHS and our hospitals and care organisations. It is an insight into dehumanisation.

I was surprised this week when, sitting with one of my patients in her home I suggested she needed to go to hospital.

‘No, I won’t go.’

‘They will be able to give you oxygen to make you feel better.’

‘No.’

‘Why?’

She was reluctant to say. It took some persuasion.

‘It’s the toilets. They won’t help me to the toilet. The last time I was in I had to wait and wait for someone to come, and no one came and, well, you can imagine what happened. Another time I was helped to the toilet by a nurse. She told me to wait for her to return. 30 minutes later my bottom was sore, I tried to get up myself and the nurse found me and told me off.’

My patient prefers to remain at home and face death rather than the indignity of incontinence.

And yet, incontinence is increasing.

I sometimes think of it alongside other orphan conditions (orphan in that no one cares or thinks about them) – hearing and dentures.

The most common items lost during a hospital stay are dentures, hearing aids and glasses.

This is something I have written about for a long time.

It is almost as if the cost of care, the price of admission is risking losing your communication aids or your ability to keep your pants dry and clean.

I have also written before about how relatively easy it is to be admitted to hospital.

All you require are the magic words, words that mimic a heart attack or stroke and voila. If you are old, you can fall over and with little effort find yourself on an assessment unit and with this ease of entry comes the cost of care and the difficulty of exit.

If you use mathematical terms, it is 1x effort or difficulty to get into hospital, it is 10x to get out; if you are old, frail, confused or infirm that multiplier might be 50x.

Frequently the system keeps you in, sending your round hospital wards in a dance macabre.

Another patient on Friday told me, ‘I won’t go back to X Hospital, it was the worst,’ I asked her in what way; she couldn’t explain. I gave her my opinion that it isn’t the hospital, more the NHS that can’t cope and alongside it the slovenly government that has been diminishing our services for more than a decade.

We changed the topic and discussed her bad knee.

We have it so wrong. So topsy turvy.

We think of treatment, we that is the doctors and sometimes the nurses love the sophisticated, the high-tech. Attach a patient to a machine with digital readouts and you are laughing. And no.

It is much more than the interface of Silicone Valley with a little old woman.

It is the basics, the essentials that have gone awry.

We consider disease treatment important and neglect prevention.

We overlook the levels of inactivity in our patients, their shopping habits, the alcohol and cigarette consumption, the decline that leads to dependence, we ignore our broken families, the slow shuffle from independence to care or nursing home, we talk in platitudes, every contact counts, what matters to you, person-centred care, when really we don’t have a clue.

Maybe it is a fall-out of industrialisation.

We are good at processes that can be wrongly applied.

They make good or bad cars.

It breaks down when reflecting upon the precarious nature of our individual vulnerability.

What a return.

King’s Cave

It was difficult to determine the nature of the writing,

The signs were obscure.

In the back,

At the darkest point, the symbols were evident only by torchlight.

No, it wasn’t real.

It could not have been.

My name,

The name of my family, my friends, colleagues, and associates,

A recording of all I know and know me.

A life-receipt, scriptorium.

They say that Robert the Bruce hid in this cave in 1306, pursued by the English.

Here he met the spider that became his legend.

It is hard to be certain, although the nature of the place is clear.

It stands far enough inland to have avoided the storms, yet adequately prominent for locals to know of its existence.

The Gaels, the Celts, Picts, and those thereafter.

Druids, occultists, and potion makers,

Those with an eye for the impure.

A dark place for dark times.

In the cave, the temperature never varies.

It is its own darkened microclimate, constant humidity, away from the wind; the midges don’t go here.

Moisture percolates the walls, a shift of water that is a hundred years old, salted with chalk, flavoured with peat.

Sound is dampened, from the moment those passing through the high-arched door, wonder why.

The carvings might be ancient, they may be the handiwork of a modern trickster, either way the message is clear.

Your past, present and future are here. Go no further.

Magic, magical.

Your breathing rapid and shallow,

Your pulse has quickened.

Even the English understand. They get it. They perceive the communication unsullied by the Empire, by Victoria’s skirts.

Abandon hope all ye, not quite, although something approaching the sentiment.

Go no further.

There is a risk, if your curiosity is too great, you will pass towards the back, you slip, under the low roof, curved towards the floor, squeeze into a crevice, and become locked, jammed into the mountainside, ossifying, you blend with the minerals.

Breathe deep, breathe no more.

Once, twice, the future appears, all is apparent, all is revealed and the moment, the continual is expressed in human binary, in zeroes and noughts that race before your eyes, that programme, hardwire into your brain, a high-speed connection to your spirit, to the you that is beneath, under, within.

No pause, no moment, no time to reflect.

All is gone.

Like the moment when you are swimming,

As you stare at the ocean floor and imagine the end,

The nonsense of the waves

Lapping against you

And all is over.

Moment, step by step

You pass unnoticed,

Into the other world

Out of time, out of space,

Not here or there,

Imploded,

It takes you.

Running in Berlin

I was running through Berlin.

I wasn’t being chased.

It was for fitness.

‘Kosher’ the word in Hebrew. Funny.

An image of war flickered through my mind.

1940, Jew, pursued by Nazis.

I couldn’t get it out of my head.

I looked for somewhere to hide.

Graffiti on the walls.

The Reich wouldn’t stand for that, would it?

On street corners, homeless people

With two-third torn coffee cups beg,

Alms for the poor.

We don’t call it that anymore.

In the book, Case Histories by Kate Atkinson, set as a text for my daughter’s forthcoming English A-Level. The characters describe a young woman, her fair hair short, dishevelled, sitting on a white sheet on a street in Cambridge, a dog at her side, asleep. There is a question as to whether she is genuinely begging or perhaps looking to supplement her income, it is the classic Right versus Left analysis of poverty or disadvantage, ‘They bring it upon themselves, they should get a job… Get on their bikes.’

I was lost.

This was not a dream.

None of the streets were recognisable.

I remember Neue Jüdenstraße. Which I interpreted as New Jewish Street. I reflected whether this had been named before or after the war.

Running through Berlin and Lower Saxony, both of which are at the centre of the European Massif, the land is flat. Few hills. No mountains.

Nowhere to hide.

If you are being chased.

Even harder if you are lost.

On the Landwehrkanal, young people are punting.

I smell cannabis.

bins are full to overflowing.

I think of the fire risk.

A dog on a lead

Looks at me,

I know what it is thinking.

Dead seal on the beach at Blackwaterfoot

The dead seal,

in a shallow grave,

Just beyond the tideline.

Its putrefaction had reached such a level

That the thin covering of pebbles, shingle and stones

Cannot contain the foetor.

Maisie, my dog detected the smell.

The taste is irresistible.

The flavour I cannot imagine.

A few scratches,

Nudges with her nose

And blubbery strands are exposed.

Ripping the stinking meat

From the carcass

Was easy.

She knows she is doing wrong

She cannot stop,

Lovely.

In Iceland, the meat of rotting shark, Hákari is considered a delicacy, the national dish.

Maisie is on to something.

Summertime Coprophagia

Ewan Macpherson was last to arrive that morning.

Something wasn’t right.

Why does he look so bad? Has he been at the drink again?

He’s eating dog shite.

Eh?

Shite, keich of the dog.

Why does he do that?

One day, he was watching his dog Fiona, she was eating shite, he looked at her shiny coat and considered this the source of the gloss. So, he copied.

Just dog?

Dog?

Dog shite? He didn’t try human or maybe cat?

Don’t be stupid.

*Keich/Keech = Scot’s word for faeces

** Coprophagia can be a normal behaviour in dogs, it can also reflect underlying physical and psychological issues.

Sippy cups, they are no good and my gustatory intransigence.

Last week, at our Person-Centred Study Day, run by my team and I from The Rotherham NHS Foundation Trust and, held at the Sheffield Hallam University Advanced Wellbeing Research Centre, we discussed nutrition, hydration, and older people.

A presentation from my colleagues, Jenny, Richard and Anna from the Speech and Language Therapy and Dietetics departments was followed by a taster session, or, rather, a sippy one drinking from beakers, or as I call them, Sippy cups, you know, the type, plastic with spout. This was our morning break tea and coffee format. (Picture below) (They are red to stop you losing them (unlike hearing aids, dentures, and glasses) during your hospital stay).

A while ago on Twitter I think it was, we shared a photo of the cups. Someone got the wrong idea (as often happens on Twitter/’X’) and thought our demonstration was a celebration of the cups, instead of experiential learning.

Tea/Coffee from a spout. (If you really want to abuse your patient, thicken their tea with Nutilis, wait for it to cool, then leave unattended in a beaker on their bedside table).

We give babies Sippy cups to stop them spilling the contents. Such cups are offered to patients, particularly those who are older and in hospital with a similar intent – and the covert message, ‘you are frail, old and doddery – if we don’t protect our bed linen, you will get your tea/coffee/chicken soup everywhere.’

It is medical paternalism/maternalism wrought large. It is the way in which beverages are offered to patients, many of whom are ‘being fed’ (not eating) in bed. The active translated into the passive. You eat your dinner; I will feed you this tasty alternative.

I wrote about patients in pyjamas years ago – this became a movement (not my doing) called ‘#EndPJParalysis’ – an attempt to get patients moving, from disease spectators to active players in their recovery.

Despite all the messaging, patients in hospital still spend most of their time in PJ’s and in bed. It is estimated that the average hospital inpatient spends up to 20 hours a day lying in bed. The longer a person, particularly someone in their 70’s, 80’s or 90’s lies in bed, the closer they are to death (the recumbent position facilitating easy transfer to a coffin, if you like).

The cups.

And so, we offer older people Sippy cups to stop them spilling (infantilisation of the old), the net result being, beyond the disempowerment, an uncontrolled movement of liquid, bypassing the lips (flow regulators), enhancing the drink’s ability to evade the oesophagus and shift to the larynx and lungs. We call this aspiration. If you are young and health, you choke, splutter and cough; if you are old, frail, and unwell already, the fluid sits in the lungs, and you develop either a bacterial pneumonia or a chemical pneumonitis (depends on the fluid) – neither are good and both carry a significant risk of death.

Suffice it to say, the Sippy’s are bad, and we would like to ban them.

We have tried removing them from hospital wards (they exist in care homes too) and yet, they reappear. The teaching is a strategy to encourage our staff to consider a cup rather than beaker.

And so, this was my question to the audience, ‘Does everyone have a favourite cup?’

Most people responded in the affirmative. ‘Yes, yes.’

I don’t have a specific cup that is my favourite, although there are three that I like the best (Waterstone’s butterfly mug, bullfinch mug and my most recent acquisition, puffin mug (from Iceland)).

This got me thinking about food.

I am, in the medicalise, a potential food monomaniac. Once I like a certain food, that is often all I will eat – you might call this faddiness, although this doesn’t mean I won’t eat other things, just that I am content to eat say, yoghourt mixed with honey and nuts for every lunch for a year. (My current thing is chickpeas, dried, soaked overnight then boiled for two hours).

Yes, many people are the same and no, this is not a disease state.

My dad ate cheddar cheese sandwiches for thirty years of his working lunch.

My point, or what I have taken a while to express, is, that I don’t really care what I eat. (This made for me, the switch to veganism relatively straightforward). (If food is obviously rotten/festering/tainted, I draw the line)

When I was younger, I adored my mum’s roast chicken and apple pie, lockshen kugel and latkes were other favourites.

There isn’t much now I am an adult that takes my fancy in the same way.

And, for me, it transpires that I care more about my food utensil than the food itself – there are certain bowls and plates that I never use, some that I utilise habitually.

I don’t know if I am alone with this.

Some people are passionate foodies. For them, what they eat is of utmost importance, for me it is the bowl and frequently the fork (too short or too long, no good, too thick tines also bad – same for spoons; ice cream or dessert must be teaspoon) (although I can eat with a regular dessert spoon – my appreciation will be dampened).

And, the reality, in hospital patients, we frequently want older people to drink more – dehydration is a major hazard – when older people are down to three or four hundred millilitres of fluid a day (little more than a can of Coke), they are, without intervention, approaching death.

What about you, reader?

Do you care more about what you are eating or drinking or how?

Is it the way or the destination.

A moot, yet, philosophical point, I know.

Despite this, relevant to our everyday lives.

I eat to live; I live to eat.

Where are you in this calculus?

Recently I have learned about the health benefits of nose-breathing.

Let’s face it, I have for much of my life been a mouth breather.

Mostly because of a lifelong struggle with rhinitis and rhinorrhoea.

I have learned about the benefits of respiration through the nose – not only does this help humidify the air we breathe (good for the lungs) and catches bacteria and other pollutants and irritants, it also releases nitric oxide which is a potent vasodilator (opens-up the blood vessels) and bronchodilator (opens the airways), this gas is also a handy destroyer of bacteria and viruses – who knew?

Nose breathing reduces the risk of asthma and allergies.

Nose breathing also facilitates slower, diaphragmatic breathing which in turn stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system which helps to relax us.

(Maybe not part of the anxious Jew makeup?)

Who knew.

They (the scientists) say I should breathe through my nose all the time (awake and asleep, at rest and when exercising) – I am working on this.

Do I live to breathe or breathe to live?

I guess, both, the secret being the way in which we translate this behaviour into our everyday lives.

Go on, the next time you are visiting mum or dad, granny, or granddad in hospital or care home, take them their favourite cup (be sure to write their name on it) and see what happens.

We humans don’t require much to flourish, food, water and a little love or appreciation and we thrive.

Morrissey, Menopause, Manson and my tricky bladder

I dreamt about you last night

And I fell out of bed twice

I dreamed about the hospital.

For a time

I was disembodied,

A ghost.

I’d been shot twice, in the chest

Double barrel

For now, forgotten crimes.

I’d been masquerading at an undead killer-doctor.

Thank you,

Blindboy

For your recent podcast

Breathing life into Charles Manson and The Family.

As I walked the wards,

I met patients,

All men.

Mostly young,

Perhaps

some middle-aged

that, is all relative.

I proposed

That they should be at home.

Why are you in hospital?

We can treat you at home.

I asked.

Virtual Ward

I said.

Later, I was looking through their notes

Which were not encoded with

Medical obscurity

Distance relationship

You and me with some medicalese in between

No, no.

These were

Person-centred,

Complete with photo of patient, their family, and friends.

The occasional dog.

Freddie Flintoff the Cocker

Mr Chips the Terrier

Who they are.

What they like.

Preferred name,

That, kind of thing.

A world away

From the narrative

Typical of the clinical record.

And,

I realised

The hospital had changed –

It had morphed from a place of alienation

To one of person-centredness.

Why wait at home,

It’s great here,

Said one.

We are having a great time.

Friendly

Warm

Good food.

It was men

In a way

Infantilised

& having the times of their lives.

Sure,

Some were sick,

They were mostly the oldies,

And no one paid them any mind.

Tomorrow we are running another Person-Centred Care training day.

This,

An idea originally developed in my old trust in Doncaster

Now upgraded and transformed to Rotherham

Is all about people,

It’s the person behind the illness,

Seeing the numbers, the Hba1c, haematocrit or ferritin as representative and of secondary importance

To the person.

I did some upgrading of my talk.

I discuss dementia, delirium and person-centredness.

There is a whole lot more; I try to make it entertaining.

Tomorrow, I plan to integrate my experiences of open water swimming

Allayed

With a need to pee.

It’s all good fun

And so, it should be.

Last week I gave a short talk on menopause.

It was my first ‘teaching’ on the topic,

Not one included in the geriatric training curriculum (perhaps it should).

It was me and the team at the practice,

Three men in a room with 30-odd women.

I felt it was a test,

To represent my experience

my learning

And not slip-up.

The way

I saw on TV on Friday

Top of the Pops from the 1981 with

Dave Lee Travis

And

Aneka*

As a Japanese woman.

Cultural appropriation

And

Orientalism

Rolled into one.

You must tread carefully

When discussing topics outside your experience,

It is easy to say or do the wrong thing,

To faux pas.

Like the non-Jew who says ‘Jew’ and to me it sounds like an attack

A passive-aggressive assault,

When, to my mind they should say ‘Jewish’

And for me, ‘Jew’ or ‘Yid’ or ‘Zhid’ or whatever is OK

So long at it is from me,

As I am one,

That is my culture, my tradition.

Like walking on thin ice.

The menopausal ice didn’t crack

I don’t believe.

I discussed the importance

Of normalising the discussion

Of men understanding what women are experiencing.

At one point,

My wife

Who was in the room

Called me a previous menopause denier

Which had been true.

I knew less than a little

And struggled to accept her symptoms as being real

As I knew nothing about perimenopause

Its age of onset

I saw menopause

As akin to getting old

And none of use like to age

At least not gracefully.

In my listening,

I was not person-centred with the person closest to me.

For me,

I am older by the day,

Pushing 51 next month

And yet,

Thanks perhaps to the decade-long hiatus in my fitness

I continue to improve

My five and 10 k’s are getting faster,

My VO2 is increasing

Older but not lesser.

And the hospital?

What an idea.

Hospital, a place you’d like to be,

Like a holiday camp

A time away from work

And the family

And everyday pressures.

Should hospital be like the Hilton?

I once asked a group of medical students,

Some said, yes,

Others, no.

We don’t want them to be too comfortable.

I suspect this reflected their maturity and life experience.

As much as their political affiliation.

I am off to swim in an hour.

Interested in my open water bladder story?

You’ll have to join my lecture.

Have a good week.

*Real name, Mary Sandeman, 75, from Edinburgh.

Hospital picnic, sleep and brain health.

If you go out to the hospital tonight,

You’re in for a big surprise.

If you go out to the hospital tonight,

You’d better go in disguise…

No, the teddy bears will not be having a picnic.

If you go out to the woods at night, it will likely be silent.

There might be the rustle of leaves,

A fox returning to its earth.

Hospitals at night are noisy.

I have written about this before – it used to form part of my medical school shtick when presenting the hazards of hospitalisation.

At 2am our cityscape is silent; our hospitals are not.

From the busyness of an emergency department through to the quiet of outpatients, after hours, there are extremes.

For many, a night on a hospital ward will be traumatic.

Either you are so sick, so overwhelmed by pro-inflammatory cytokines and sepsis as to be out-of-it or you will be lying worrying. Listening to the breathing of the other three or five souls in your bay. You will hear the nurses’ chatter, the lights at the doctors’ station will flicker on and off.

If you are lucky and you are young, you will be in and out. A night or two and you are home. The fortunate will have family who supply them with ear plugs and eye covers, ways to block out the external.

The old man will first cry-out, he doesn’t understand the buzzer-system and will shout for help, he will attempt to walk to the toilet and fall-over, a cardiac arrest and failed resuscitation behind your neighbour’s curtain. The guy who joked about chest pains earlier that day.

Hospitals and care homes are awake at night.

It is not certain although likely that as people age, they require less sleep, there is more daytime napping, perhaps to counter poorer-quality bed-time, and I suspect for many, lack of engagement, activity and stimulation are key.

None of what I have written is new.

And yet, the importance of sleep to human physical, emotional and psychological wellbeing cannot be underemphasised.

One disturbed night of sleep is unlikely to have long-term consequences although imagine you are up every night, pacing.

Imagine your body is resistant.

If you lie in bed starting at the ceiling, you won’t be bothered. Yes, it is hard, it is nerve-wracking, the slow hours passing. If you are up and about, particularly if you bother the nurse, you might receive a sedative, a sleeping tablet, Zopiclone, Temazepam or Lorazepam.

Benzodiazepines knock you out but don’t foster quality sleep.

When we are under, after the first descent into deep non-REM sleep, our brain’s function increases – just as our consciousness stops. Levels of ADP (the sleepiness chemical) are converted to ATP to provide energy for thought, out microglia wash-out the accumulated proteins from a day’s processing.

Your brain at night is like a city-centre after-hours, when the revellers have returned to their hotels and the cleaners appear, sweeping-up the broken glass, removing the vomit and piss and daytime wreckage, all to be repeated the next night. Those little vans with whirling brushes clean the gutters, as they pass there is a thrum of noise that quickly fades.

There is a theory that sleep, and cognition are linked.

If you don’t get enough sleep or sleep poorly, your brain’s ability to function the following day is potentially lessened.

I always remember the Thatcherism, that she only needed four or five hours sleep whilst she was busy wrecking the country. It didn’t do Thatcher any harm, they used to say.

And yet, the woman, towards the end, lived with dementia. Her physical exterior, black handbag all that was left of the tyrant was unchanged.

Sleep is likely important for maintaining health in ways that we have not yet discovered. The cleaning-out of spent proteins is theoretically linked with, over years, the accumulation of beta-amyloid and tau proteins – the hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease.

Sleep disturbance often precedes dementia and once the diagnosis is made, sleep deteriorates (disturbed sleep, or the disturbance to your husband or wife is frequently the cause of a crisis that leads to long-term care).

If you are unlucky, a doctor might prescribe a benzodiazepine to hasten sleep (at nurses’ convenience), even worse, to reduce the level of your night-time unruliness, you might receive an anti-psychotic which will further lead to your unravelling.

I think about the men and women in care homes.

There are many more living alone at home, in postage-stamp bungalows, they for the most are free from the intervention of the system. If Norman who is 89 chooses to watch TV at 2am no one will bother, if Iris, in her care home goes walkabout, she develops a symptom (pacing/restlessness/wandering/agitation) that requires treatment.

I think of the older people and how little they do.

The hours of their days passing. The notable interruptions of medicines and mealtimes. Perhaps a carer visits to tend to their hygiene. The last years of life pass fast, for although little happens, I am given to believe that time speeds-up as you age. From the slow summers of our early years to the vanishing acts of our 80’s.

How little exercise, how little choice in food, how little autonomy, facility to prepare what you eat or decide on your clothes or the art on your walls, the enforced living with others, your commonality based upon age and frailty.

We sleep, we dream.

Robots dream of electric sheep.

How about the very old, or the sick or the sick and old?

Ageing elders acquire health conditions that impinge on their sleep, they episodically pause in the oxygenation of their brains – apnoea, their oxygen levels drop, this starvation kills brain cells, accelerating their decline.

I watched the new Netflix documentary, The Deepest Breath last week. I am still reeling. I looked at the deeply cyanosed bodies as they surfaced unconscious from the free-dive, sightless eyes staring, breathing stopped; mouth to mouth before they come-round. I wonder as to the amount of damage this does to their brains. How many neurones are lost for every 10 meters of decent. For many this isn’t a concern. They mostly die young.

Brain health and sleep are linked.

I understand head butting a football is banned for children in Scotland.

I can’t see it.

And, surely, the odd headbutt can do much harm.

For the most our bodies are resilient.

Yes, a lifetime of headers is associated with neurodegeneration and dementia.

A one-off major head injury is not good either.

I sometimes think about my bike crash in the late 2000’s, when the Sheffield tram and the Sheffield cobblestones led to a fracture of my skull. This explains a lot.

Look after your head, you only have one.

Sleep and dream.

Get adequate hours in bed.

Allow the cleaning services to do their job.

If you find yourself stuck inside a nursing home, watch your step.

If you fall too much and fall at night, they might chemically cosh you, if you fall and move albeit temporarily to hospital, your circadian rhythm will be discombobulated – you will be on a slippery slope.

Stay upright, stay sane, stay well.

Our brains, the most sophisticated mechanisms in the universe need protection, curating, not much, just a little and you will be fine.

Lavender helps, I believe.

Today, I swam.

Those who know me, know this past year, I have taken to swimming.

Today was my longest two and a half hours and furthest 4.2km.

I am not a fast swimmer.

I only properly learned to swim when I was 17 studying for O-Levels at Langside College. Before then I used to perform a front crawl that I had copied off the TV. One of those 1980’s action-adventure series with American Vietnam Vets who have crash landed in a river. That kind of thing. (Have tried unsuccesfully Google Image searching – suspect this only exists in my imagination).

Not being a fast swimmer, people overtake me. I am not sure I have mentioned the one-legged man at the lake – he swims faster than me. I learned recently that most of the front-crawl – called freestyle by some, is driven by the arms; perhaps he has an unfair advantage.

Much of this is humility.

When I was younger, in my 20’s or early 30’s, when running, I would mostly overtake fellow joggers. On my bike, I was the same. I never did this maliciously although there is a certain satisfaction in cruising past another, no matter their age, gender, or level of fitness, ‘Morning!’ you call as you out-manoeuvre.

My 40’s saw a decline in my fitness that was only matched by my late childhood in Glasgow.

The ZX Spectrum wasn’t good for me.

With life events, I won’t specify which, I found it harder to find time and inclination to run and so my fitness dwindled. Eventually I was breathless climbing a flight of stairs.

There is an idea that as we reach and pass our mid-age, we face the finitude of our lives and realise things can’t go on for ever. The piled-on Cheddar Cheese, the chocolate, crisps, and bottle of wine all take their toll, all accumulate and lead to a sluggish decline, experienced by millions.

Diabetes, hypertension, osteoarthritis. You know all the medical jargon.

18 months ago, I started running – thanks entirely to the Couch to 5K app from the BBC. Then, following an exchange of emails with a colleague I learned about open water swimming.

At first, I managed 400m breaststroke with difficulty and over the months my distance and fitness increased.

My Apple Watch, a fundamental to health improvement measurement has demonstrated a progressive increase in my VO2 max – my body’s ability to utilise oxygen; this is a measure of fitness as much as metabolic efficiency.

All this is good although I am not deluded. I could have a heart attack tomorrow.

A year ago, I gave up meat and in the past six months all non-plant foods have left my diet – cheese and milk gone. I eat lots of nuts.

It has been a mid-life transformation.

Particularly interesting for me was a recent visit to my older brother in Israel who hasn’t done any of this.

I’ll say no more.

I remember a few years ago, during one of those work-place health assessments, I was asked, ‘How many times a week do you exercise?’

Zero.

Now I am at most days.

This sounds like bragging.

It’s not.

It is intended as a salutary tale of what is possible.

Yesterday, I ran my fastest 5K and earlier in the week my fastest 10K since my return to fitness. I won’t tell you how fast as it is all relative, although, kudos to me.

Last night I took my daughter to watch the new Indiana Jones movie.

I’d say it isn’t fantastic although I am not the target audience.

What amazed me was the start of the movie which time-travelled from 1969 to 1948. Indie was springing about, walloping Nazis and being walloped. The film makers deep faked his face to make him look younger. It was weird. The illusion only unravelled when they went full-on CGI with graphic figures running and jumping on top of a train (think ZX Spectrum), (containing the supposed Jesus-related artefact.)

Most of the film is set in 1969, just after the moon-landings. Indie is an ‘old man’ by this time – he is given a >symbolic< clock by his university department, to mark his retirement. He shloories. Time has taken its toll, all perhaps enhanced by the jump from fake to standard Hollywood image of older man (how old is he? In the film I imagine he is meant to be 65 although he looks older – Harrison Ford himself is 81.)

Eventually Professor Jones is back on top, running, leaping, punching, and whipping. He manages to outpace a Mercedes Benz in an Algerian Tuk-tuk.

I am sure Harrison watches what he eats. He would probably be one of the people running past me.

I liked however the frequent references to his ageing body, the aches, and pains.

I had aches and pains until a year ago – they have strangely vanished.

If I had visited my doctor, they might have prescribed me anti-inflammatories.

The problem isn’t inflammation it was lack of physical fitness.

I’ve never had a doctor prescribe me a Couch to 5K or even a plant-based diet. This isn’t something you ever hear discussed. We dole-out the statins, anti-hypertensives and blood thinners and assume that for most the battle is lost.

No, don’t start running and stop your Apixaban. There is more going-on than the zero-sum game of active or inactive.

It is just interesting.

Physical exercise, without sounding too much like an evangelist is central to all wellbeing, psychological and emotional.

Running 5K is more effective at improving mood than any dose of anti-depressant.

The same is said of meditation although I have not quite got there yet, having said that, my swim is a meditation (until one of those fast swimmers’ crashes into me or I become tangled in a fishing line).

Go, on, what are you going to do.

My brother’s favourite when I was younger was mens sana in corpore sano. That was back when I was struggling with the essence of being human – my existential adolescence. How true it is.

You can find links to some useful sites below.

http://www.nhs.uk/live-well/exercise/running-and-aerobic-exercises/get-running-with-couch-to-5k/

http://www.mwbc.org.uk/open-water-swimming

http://www.health.gov/news/202112/physical-activity-good-mind-and-body

A letter to my old friend.

Dear Moshe,

It has been ages time since I heard from you.

If I am not wrong, I wrote the last time.

It doesn’t matter.

Correspondence isn’t ping pong.

And so, you may or may not be interested in my recent visit.

I spent ten days in Israel, visiting my family, seeing the sites, splashing in the sea, and tasting falafel. It was a busy time.

My brother who recently qualified as a registered tour-guide had planned our itinerary to-the-minute with visits to places of both antiquity and ultra-modernity. It was, you might say, a melange (tour de force?) of history past and present , like those tasting menus you get in high-price restaurants. You think you are only getting a mini morsel, instead, your belly over-full, you struggle to breathe at the end.

And why the detail?

Well, I know I didn’t call or mail you or even let you know I was in the country, so, this letter is more of an apology for my not connecting. Sure, it would have been feasible, easy in fact to type a few lines, to have taken the next step and connected electronically or even physically. I didn’t. All apologies. As they say.

Life is continuous. Like the river flowing. Until it stops.

Moments blend into years and before you know, it is all over.

On their death bed no one wishes they had spent more time at the office.

Life is not a dress-rehearsal.

That last aphorism, from Milan Kundera who died this week.

Yes, even he has gone.

Kundera was at his creative best in the 1990’s, since then he and I have been on alternate tracks.

We, you, and I have been on separate paths since the 90’s too, when I left The Land.

Because of circumstances, I moved away.

You stayed, along with Alon, Pinchas, Motti and Obadia. Did you know that Obadia later changed his name to Sheila? These things happen. Time does strange things.

I wonder about you, your life trajectory.

I know so little.

I remember a visit perhaps twenty years ago, you told me your dad had died. Cancer.

Oftentimes I think about your mum.

I wonder if she is still alive. I think of the conversations we had. Your mum helped me analyse the Declaration of Independence. I also think about the conversations we never had.

Just at the time that my mum was losing her mind, yours was together, I remember her old Trabant Estate. Yes, I know it wasn’t a Trabant, but still. I recall a blue Volvo. Today I drive a Volvo, I perceive it as link to our past.

I remember so much, a huge part of me lingers then.

I wonder about others; do they experience the same?

Last week, my brother took my daughter and I to the Western Wall, Ha Kotel as you say.

We were guided round the tunnels running underneath the wall by an awful man called Begin.

It was weird, a strange disconnect. We stood beneath the holiest of holies (not the Holy of Holies mind, they have that.) Above, although we couldn’t hear, men and women of different Jewish denominations were pouring-out their hearts, davening, rocking from side to side, back to front and in circles, hypnotically, tranced, and we, the tourists, underneath gazed slack jawed at Herod’s architecture.

A giant keystone sits in pride of place. We wonder how they did it, how they moved the rocks, how they achieved such geometric accuracy, how the whole thing doesn’t collapse.

I recall the five- or six-year-old boy, over-sized baseball cap, mock-sleeping on his sister’s knee. Another woman, to my left was texting. This surely the sign of a guide who has lost his way.

My brother the guide has an impossible sense of direction. He struggles with Waze or Google Maps which makes the experience all together unique.

He was doubtful over my ability to negotiate the Old City. A skill I acquired 30 years ago as a medical student.

At the time, I had organised a month-stay at the Hadassah Medical School, Department of Paediatrics. After a couple of days, I ran away.

I can’t remember exactly my reasons for fleeing. Likely this had to do with feelings of discomfort. I don’t think anyone talked to me.

I ended-up in a Palestinian baby clinic, just down from the entrance to the Temple Mount. It was run by a Dutch doctor. I learned some Arabic words such as itch, bite, vomit, and insect.

Later, I received an angry letter from the medical school, you shouldn’t have just disappeared they said. Disappearance has always been one of my skills. Zelig that’s me.

And so, a month in the Old City, I gained a sense of direction.

This took me to the second-hand book shop run by a very old (at the time) expatriate New Yorker. It was in that shop I purchased my original copy of The Handmaid’s Tale.

The shop is still there although shut with a sign suggesting the closure is indefinite.

The old man, now, likely dust.

And we didn’t connect.

No, I didn’t call or check-in.

You were in the UK recently and didn’t reach out to me, this isn’t tit-for-tat. It is just the way.

I recall our morning school bus journey.

You were the first person I was able to sit with in silence.

You were my introduction to the introversion that is my home. My sanctum.

I know, as I age, the present will become disproportionately proximate yet small in comparison with the time of my youth.

Before the age of five or six I can’t remember anything.

People are always amazed at my inability to recall my first day of school.

I try to think-back. Nothing.

Those were troubled years.

Troubled by life events as well as perceived antisemitism.

At present I am reading the books White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo.

DiAngelo discusses the experiences of white people and their experiences of racism, White Supremacy and being part of a privileged majority.

In the book she suggests that when people hark back to the good old times, this too is a form of racism, as in the past, life was always of necessity more separate, the extremes of race and racial discord worse.

Today, racism or intolerance of the other is covert. The Right has managed to counterfeit its use of language, changing the explicit to the morally superficially acceptable.

At least we are reading from the same hymn sheet. Not quite.

Today, we use the right words, our terminology pitch-perfect, yet the hate, the fear of difference is as great as ever.

And so, I don’t want to spend too much time thinking about the past, despite that being the only analysis of reality we have.

I know the sun was not cooler, the food tastier although yes, I could run faster.

Our brains are fantastic at filtering the chaff, at removing the pain and retaining the joy, it is an essential of being human.

My brother talks with confidence about events that took place 2,000 years ago, this rock signified the Jewish covenant with… kind of thing.

I look at the faces of the Christian pilgrims who are informed, Jesus might have walked these streets; they are overwhelmed.

My feet stood where Jesus stood.

Imagine.

I am too cynical for religious experience.

I deal with the scientific revelation, until it is disproved.

And so, dear Moshe,

When, if ever will we ever meet?

There are emails, FaceTime or WhatsApp, there are many ways to connect.

In 1990 I remember phoning you from Glasgow, hoping that my dad would not question the phone bill.

He never did.

Technology keeps advancing, mostly at a rate that is beyond anyone except the very young.

Where will we be in another 20 or 30 years?

Farewell my friend,

If you are ever in the neighbourhood, pop-in. I am likely to be home.

Be well.

Rudi

I worry what it is like to belong to a minority in Israel.

I remember the tautology proposed by Amos Oz, one of Israel’s greatest novelists and peace proponents that, most of the majority is a minority.

Yesterday, and especially last night there were massive protests in Tel Aviv and Ben Gurion International Airport. Those in attendance were and have been for many months demonstrating against the government’s proposed changes to the legal system that would rebalance the power of the Supreme Court. This would in turn allow the government of the time, more, or potentially, an absolute right to alter the laws of the country. (Some perceive echoes of the Munich Putsch).

Democracy in action – will anyone listen?

You might think this is not unreasonable – the government were voted into power through a democratic process and should be able to determine what happens next.

Democracy can be tricky.

As we know, the process was invented in Ancient Greece.

The citizens were allowed to cast their vote and determine who would sit in the Senate.

Good, good, you say.

When you consider the definition of citizen that is when it goes awry.

Women, ‘children’ under the age of 20, slaves and many other groupings of tax and non-tax payers did not have vote.

The Mother of Parliaments, Britain, did not allow women the vote until 1918.

In America and more recently in the UK, changes to the process for registration have made it more difficult for certain groups to vote, particularly those from ethnic or other minority groups.

Democracy is not transparent.

And yet, it is, most would argue the best system we have, with the alternatives, such as totalitarianism (North Korea, for example) or anarchy (Yemen? Somalia?) no better.

Those in sitting in the Israeli Parliament, in the ruling party, claim the process that brought them to power is democratic and, consequently they are free to make or change laws.

Others, claim this is the end of democracy.

I am no political scholar although something feels fishy.

Hitler used democracy to establish his position, the UK Conservative Party used democracy to remove us from the European Union.

Democracy, it seems is human; filled with flaws and inconsistencies.

An issue arises when the system is considered absolute or without the potential for challenge (this, I believe, is one of the roles of a Supreme Court).

Back to my original question.

What is it like to be in the minority in Israel?

In the UK, laws exist in relation to BAME, Back and Minority Ethnic groups, legally protected characteristics prohibit discrimination on the base of race, religion, ethnicity, sexuality or gender identity.

This is good.

However, if you switch-on the news you repeatedly hear discussions about institutional racism or sexism.

Yesterday, in the UK, as reported in The Guardian, the Royal National Lifeboat Association (RNLI) were at it.

It seems you can’t trust anyone. Even a sailor.

I do not know exactly what rights are granted to those living in Israel.

I could quickly Wikipedia although I suspect there are similar regulations prohibiting discrimination in relation to minority status.

Israel is for most intents and purposes a Liberal Democracy.

Despite what some might say.

And yes, it is a democracy with hostile neighbo(u)rs, consequently, there are rules and laws that you might not find elsewhere.

And so, the minorities.

Jews, for the most part, depending where you live, exist as minorities.

I am led to believe, if you visit Crown Heights in New York, there are lots of Jewish people, the same likely applies to certain areas of Paris or London.

Birds of a feather flock together.

And yet, there is not one type of Jewish bird.

There are all different types with plumage that varies between man and woman and level of religious adherence.

Judaism is matrilineal. In that the religion passes-through the mother, this is the opposite of Islam where the father determines religion. Within this split there are all sorts of twists and turns, for example, to quality for the Israeli Right of Return – a law that allows any Jew to live and settle in Israel follows the so called Nuremberg Race Laws, one grand-parent is adequate to determine your Jewishness.

As to how this happens, I don’t know, perhaps the individual requires a photo of their grand-father’s Bar Mitzvah, I don’t know. There must be a process.

The Palestinian People have adopted a similar ruling, to the Right of Return.

Demographically, there are approximately nine-million Israelis (I suspect I count within that statistic, although as you will have read in previous blogs, even that is not black and white), nevertheless, within this population are the majority groups – the Jews and the Arabs.

Jews are sub-divided into Orthodox, Reform, Conservative, Liberal, Secular and many other groupings.

Arabs, in general, who represent approximately 20 per cent of the population (approximatley, two million people) are broadly separated into Muslim and Christian Arabs.

There are also significant groups of Druze (circa, 150,000) – mostly in the North (check out their cool flag, below) and Bedouin (c. 200,000), who are predominantly in the East and South, the Judean and Negev desert regions.

Within the Gaza Strip and the West Bank are approximately five million Palestinian Arabs who identify as either Christian or Muslim.

Most of the majority in Israel are Jews.

Most of the majority in the Occupied Territories are Arabs.

That is the most straightforward divide although there is more going-on.

Israel has frequently accepted immigrants from Eritrea, Sudan, and Ukraine, none of whom are necessarily Jewish, equally, there are many workers from the Philippines in Israel (as in the UK, often working in nursing and other caring professions).

I can’t say, although I imagine without marital bonds or other formal immigration processes, these groups are not considered citizens and not allowed to vote.

Many Palestinian Arabs from the Occupied West Bank cross-over to Israel or live during the week in Israeli cities as part of their terms of employment. This is a nuance that is often overlooked in the media. The Palestinian economy is critically dependent upon that of Israel, therefore, when you ban Jewish/Israeli produce you are indirectly harming the Palestinian People. Yes, Waitrose shoppers, even the dates.

As I said at the start, I have been thinking about minorities.

You, me, everybody.

We are all minorities unto ourselves.

We are all part of the whole.

Gregarious sapiens like to be part of a group, they like to feel a sense of belonging, even when they don’t fit-in.

It was Nietzsche who compared the person who lives in absolute isolation to either a madman or a god. Take your pick. Solitary isn’t easy.

I sensed the divide between them and us, most profoundly in Jerusalem.

Us, the Jews, them, the Arabs.

It is often difficult to tell the people apart.

Religious Arab and Jewish women often appear alike (to me) – both covered top to toe with complex forms of head-dress or scarf.

The men are more straightforward.

Rabbis and the like have the black coats, dangling tzitzes, peot and beards, Imams tend to dress more modestly, with less of 1700’s Eastern Europe look.

I mentioned in a recent blog the distinction between recent immigrants to Israel and Israelis in their accents.

The American, South African, English or French recent immigrant will speak Hebrew with a singular accent, mostly dependent upon the age at which they arrive in the country, some, with particularly musical ears might blend-in more readily, although to the practiced ear, the accents are obvious.

Arab Israelis also speak Hebrew with their own accent. Again, readily detectable to those in the know although those Arab Israelis who have been through the education system and who have lived, loved or worked with Jews can control their intonations as to sound indistinguishable from Jewsish Israelis.

There was a season of Fauda where the Palestinian Arab who has word-perfect Hebrew poses as a religious Jew to infiltrate the country and plant explosives.

This addressed one of the great unspoken fears of the Jewish population in Israel of a Fifth Column of Arabs taking-up arms with their fellows in hostile countries (Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Saudi, Yemen, take your pick).

And so, what does it feel like to be an Israeli Arab who is perceived as a Jew in Israel?

Does it register?

There is much data to suggest that the experiences of Arab Israelis in Israel are better than those of Arabs living in other Middle Eastern Countries, in terms of work opportunities, education and health benefits. The life expectancy of an Israeli Arab is better than that of a relative living in Egypt or Lebanon although less than that of an Israeli Jew. (Admittedly, compared to Syria or Iraq, the bar is low).

Supposedly 80 per cent of Arab Israelis would prefer to remain in Israel after the establishment of a Palestinian State.

Certainly, if you belong to one of those ethnic groups I mentioned earlier, or are a member of the LGBTQ community you will be more welcomed in the Tel Aviv than on Jenin high-street.

Israelis can be rude.

It is a fact of life I have experience first-hand during my recent visit.

There are two situations where their inherent rudeness, impatience and intolerance are evident – when driving cars and when dealing with tourists.

I don’t understand either as surely, a more laid-back approach to tourists and traffic will make for a happier person.

Maybe aggression in cars replaces a need for actual fisticuffs.

Possibly not.

I worry about the regular rudeness that flows between those in the one ethnic or cultural group and when this is inter-group.

(Menachem Begin, in his book White Nights, describes his time in a Siberian prison under Stalin and explains his use of the word ‘Zhid’ which in Russian is the accepted term for someone who is Jewish but in Poland is considered derogatory.)

Go figure.

For a diaspora Jews (someone living outside the Land of Israel) there is sometimes the internal dialogue, ‘Did he/she treat me that way because I am Jewish?’

This is, I imagine something that runs through the minds of many people regardless of their minority grouping.

‘Did Sandra shout at me because I’m not in her branch of the girl guides or is she just having a bad day?’

Sometimes it doesn’t help to be over-sensitive.

Elephants with their thick skins are expert at this approach.

They sometimes trumpet their annoyance. For the most, they plod-on to the next water hole.

Maybe we need to be more elephant.

Embrace your inner elephant.

Sounds like a good t-shirt logo.

That’s what I will do.

Excuse my giant poop and hazards when reverse parking.

Have a good day.

My towel, your towel, our towel. A story of The Land. Israel & Palestine.

I am thinking of the Germans.

Not, of World War Two, nor of modern times welcoming of Syrian and Ukrainian refugees, love of the environment and general industriousness, more the caricatured German on holiday.

You know the trope.

Up, before breakfast, towels on the lounger. Possession nine tenths of the law.

Later they strip-off, in the all-together and swim in the lake. That is another stereotype.

I haven’t holidayed with German tourists in a while.

(This is the distinction – Germans versus German tourists).

Reminds me of Pulp’s … everybody hates a tourist… especially one who thinks it’s all such a laugh...

Well,

My point relates to staking a claim.

At what point is the lounger in the possession of the tourist and at what point do they forfeit ownership?

At the start of our current holiday, my daughter and I were in an early-morning, next-day flight-hotel at Luton Airport.

We motioned to sit in a chair beside the window (me, for salad, daughter for re-heated pizza).

There was a sweater draped over the arm of the chair, consequently, we moved to another, perhaps less attractive seat.

Other couples appeared, headed to the chair then moved away.

Eventually one woman, picked up the sweater, moved it to another chair and sat down. By the window.

She ate her meal, then moved-on.

Possession.

My spirit is within me and it comes into you.

We move around, through time and space.

I buy a car on HP. It is mine, kind of, although you know it belongs to Arnold Clark or Toyota or, maybe the bank. A tipping-point passes and you have paid for more than 50% of the value of the car. It still belongs to the bank/car guy.

Only when you have paid everything, is it yours, and then, you turn around and look at your mortgage and realise that nothing is really yours, it is whatever the bank manager and the interest rates allow you.

And so too, the story of Israel.

The Bible says that God offered the land of Canaan to Abraham and his descendents.

Of course, Abraham had two children, Isaac, and Ishmael.

Isaac, the forefather of the Jewish People, Ishmael, the Muslim Nation.

It’s a classic of fiction; create anticipation then a conflict

On Sunday night, my brother took me, my daughter and nephew to the Tower of David Light and Sound show which is in a museum beside the Jaffa Gate entrance to the Old City.

It is the 3,000-year story of the Land of Israel from Adam and Eve, via Abraham through to the departure of the Ottomans in 1918.

The story ends thirty years before the establishment of the current state of Israel – no explanation as to why.

The show is projected onto the walls of the Old City with actors dressed as per the time-period… Biblical, Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, Roman and so on.

The intention, as far as I could understand from the narrative (which was kept to a minimum in order not to overcomplicate matters for the international audience) was the ownership of The Land of Israel (note the capitals) through multiple different rules until today, when the Israelis are back in charge.

On my recent travels through The Land, there has been ample evidence of the presence of the Jews some two thousand years ago (the time of the second great kingdom of the Jews, the first being that which was destroyed by the Assyrian’s in 720 BC.)

I have seen First Century Menorah’s, Stars of Solomon and David, symbolic pomegranates, pillars and palm fronds, mosaics, double-rooms (casemate) and stairways.

I have also seen Arabic, Aramaic, Greek and Roman artefacts.

Stone is a fantastic testament to the past as it weathers well.

It is almost as good as plastic, without the micro-fragments that get into your brain.

Back to the Germans, or, if you like, the Israelis and the Palestinians.

During my time in Israel, I have been very careful with my groupings of people, cautious not to say Muslims when I mean Israeli Arabs or Palestinians when I mean those living in Israeli cities either within the 1948 or the 1967 borders (Wars of Independence and Six-Day Wars, respectively) (or the Naqba), all resulting in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict we have today.)

And so, the Palestinian Arabs (who are predominantly Muslim, with a significant number of Christians) believe the land, that is Syria Palaestina, so called by the Romans following their removal of the Jews in 73CE/AD belongs to them and their ancestors, dating back two thousand years, and the Jews who claim the land to be theirs prior to the Roman Conquest, or, if you are devout, the earlier allocation by God to Abraham.

It’s complicated, no?

Somehow a beach towel isn’t enough in these situations.

No amount of name-calling will help solve the dilemma.

The answer?

Take a Solomonite sword to the towel, threaten to split it in two and let the partners decide?

There is a long narrative, ever since the 1940’s with the Israelis (who are for the most, Jews, Muslims, Christians and Druze) saying that they have accepted any version of peace offered to them, whether the 1948, 1967, 1973, 2009 borders or anything in between.

They – usually the Left-Wing parties in Israel have rushed to peace. The people, that is the combined electorate have been more hesitant and the major regional peace treaties signed with Egypt, Jordan, Bahrain, and Qatar were managed by Right-Wing governments.

The default within the Arab camp, that is the Palestinians, whether Fatah, Hamas or other ruling body has been to refuse to accept the existence of Israel.

To deny the towel.

To pretend the towel has no power, meaning or significance beyond an inconvenience.

The Israeli Left have, despite this intransigence, offered to ‘let’s talk,’ the Right, currently in power have said, if you don’t see or believe in the power of our towel, we will layer towel upon towel, to heck with you.

Enough with the towelling analogies.

Sometimes much easier to express what is to be said literally.

They say the land is theirs, we say it is ours.

They say they will kill every last one of us to make way for their return to the land, we say, we are not going away. We have nowhere to go. Our three-thousand year diaspora is caput.

Some argue, ‘It’s your turn to be dispossessed,’ and yet others, ‘You have land, go and settle in Jordan/Egypt/Lebanon/Saudi,’ nothing with nuance.

The antisemitic news-cabal blames the Israelis as they no longer have access to ‘the Jew.’

The circle spins, just like the Apple or Microsoft sand-timers.

Eventually the Tourist returns to the lounger and asks his buddy, ‘Who put that towel there?’

‘It was you!’

‘Are you sure? I don’t remember.’

‘Yes, yours is the blue and white one, theirs the red, black, white and green towel. Simples.’

‘OK. Thanks for the reminder. Do you have the sunscreen?’

Letters to My Palestinian Neighbo(u)r

I finished Yossi Klein Halevi’s book yesterday.

I was sitting in the shade, in my brother’s garden.

In Ra’anana.

This is within the original 1948 borders of Israel.

Tomorrow, we visit Qumran, site of the Dead Sea Scrolls and on Sunday, Jerusalem. We will cross the border from East to West.

Thank you, Yossi, for reaching out, for articulating your position and providing an explanation for your world and that of many Israelis and Jews who sometimes find themselves discombobulated by the truths, half-truths and lies that are communicated on social and all the other types of media.

It is often hard to know the truth.

Of course, the truth is objective or, if you are a scientist, a theory that is waiting to be disproved.

It was a Jewish Philosopher, Karl Popper who described the theory for disproving the null hypothesis in 1959.

Yesterday, my daughter and I visited the Museum of the Jewish People, formerly known as Beit Ha-Tfutsot, now ‘Anu’ which means ‘We,’ in Hebrew.

The guide, Sharon, former New Yorker, now local, explained to us the idea behind the change of name.

… In the early days, Israeli’s position was to call the Diaspora, to focus on Israel as the centre of Judaism, now the emphasis has shifted to the people, those living in Israel and those around the world.

I paraphrase. Apologies, Sharon, if I have mis-quoted.

The museum has undergone an existential change from ‘me’ to ‘we.’

It is an interesting shift of perspective.

I am not aware of any other national museum undergoing this Satori. Humility joined with self-reflection.

Yossi’s book combines these two aspects of what it is to be human.

A consideration of our place in the world, a splitting-off from the ‘Chosen People’ to ‘The People’ and away from ‘me’ and my Tzorres – ‘troubles’ in Yiddish, to ‘we’ and our predicament.

The Nation of Israel and the Nation of Palestine. The latter yet to be recognised by the United Nations, yet present in every debate.

There has not yet been a Palestinian entry to the Eurovision Song Contest. I wonder when that will happen.

There has been lots of badness on both sides.

Whether you accept or acknowledge Israeli’s Original Sin, called the ‘Naqba’ in Arabic – Catastrophe or you choose to look away and focus on a story that is 2,000 years in the making – a resumption of the Land of Israel, a living response to the Roman Army’s Exile.

Back in the day the Jews were tenacious.

My brother took my daughter and I to visit Gamla. This is a site in Northern Israel, so called as it resembles the hump of a camel (described by the Jewish-Roman historian Josephus Flavius (Yoseph Ben Mattityahu) in his book, The Jewish War, where the Romans required multiple legions to defeat a band of resourceful Jewish warriors, all of whom ultimately perished at their own hands (jumping off the cliff-edge – a foreshadowing of Masada.)

I mention Gamla as it is such an incredible place. It is also the site of the re-introduction, following local extinction of the Griffon Vultures*. Massive predatory birds that once cruised the local thermals.

Drones, jets and helicopters now predominate.

I had an interesting discussion with the guide about the tension between the vultures and the local farmers, who, because of problems with jackals and other predators, resort to poisoning carrion which in turn kills the birds.

‘Who are they, the farmers,’ I asked, ‘Druze?’

‘Yes, they are Druze and Arabs and Jews,’ it isn’t one person or people. It is important not to use the poisoning to scapegoat one group.

His emphasis was on ‘we’ rather than them or those.

Othering is a concept in which one diminishes a person or people to a label. His insight or intuition brought the conversation back to the centrality of who we and they are.

Yossi’s book is a shift away from ‘them’ to ‘us.’

The nation, that is Israel has begun this process (for some it has been a long-standing position – I reflect on the writing of Amos Oz and the Peace Now movement). Amos is now dead, and I don’t know what happened to Peace Now – Yossi’s reflection would be that it fell away in the Second Intifada, the years of terror that followed the withdrawal from Gaza and the rise of Hamas.

The book if fascinating as it is written as letters to the people living in the Palestinian town a literal stone’s throw from his house, behind the concrete wall that separates Israel from the West Bank, not only this, but the book also allows for responses.

Appendices include replies from people living in the West Bank, Gaza and across the Arab World. Some are critical, disagreeing with his thesis or the details of the narrative, others are mutual attempts to move forwards, to exit the quagmire, the stalemate that sits like the summer humidity in this scorched land.

And the future, tomorrow? Let’s keep moving.

If we fail, we fail, at least we have tried.

If we fall-down, we get up again.

*There are several populations of Griffon Vultures living across the Near and Far East. In Tibet, these birds are famous for their participation in Sky Burials, the return to the elements of those who have died in a land too cold and arid for in the ground burial.

Little failure

It’s funny. Two days ago, I set about writing a blog about failure.

I finished the seven hundred or so words and saved. And didn’t post. It didn’t feel right.

The blog was specifically discussing the aspiration to fail three times a day.

This was taken from a podcast I heard recently. It was one of Blindboy’s in interview with the nutritional psychologist Kimberley Wilson.

I had it wrong.

The aspiration discussed in the podcast had not been to aim for three failures a day – as a means of growth or development, rather, to risk three failures a day.

I take the title of this blog from the autobiography of the Russian American writer, Barry Shteyngart.

If I remember correctly, the thesis of the book wqs the notion that Barry is such a failure that he hasn’t even succeeded at being a failure. Thus, Little Failure. ‘You couldn’t even fail at failing!’ His dad might have complained.

And so, the attempts to not fail.

We should aspire every day to undertake three new activites that could fail (ideally), although I imagine, for most of us, starting with one is a way to avoid the first rule of failure club; therefore, pick something you would like to do, for which there is a chance of failure and go for it.

The suggestion to undertake something that might result in failure is to avoid doing what you have always done.

In life, our fear of failure is a major impediment to growth.

I can’t do that because… What if I… I tried that once and I couldn’t… mindsets.

I had it wrong the first time around as there is no point in doing something that is bound to fail. I’ll drive my car into the sea, is just daft.

I arrived at this, mundane satori during this morning’s run.

I was pounding the streets of Ra’anana, the city in central Israel.

Travelling the once familiar streets, taking in the placenames, and reflecting – Brenner, Yehuda Halevi, Rambam, Maccabi, Ha Sharon, Ostrovsky, Bilu, Eliezer Yaffe, and so on, I realised the thing was to have a go.

As I ran, I reflected on language.

I am shy at times.

Recently, I have written about my early life. At age 12 I moved from Glasgow in Scotland to Ra’anana in Israel. That was January 1985. My knowledge of Hebrew was minimal. I learned fast.

For the first year I barely spoke a word (in Hebrew).

I progressively understood more and more.

One day, standing outside the pet shot on Ostrovsky Street (still in business today, 40 years later), I responded to a comment one of my friends made; in Hebrew. He was taken-aback; he had not realised I could understand what they were saying.

You see, I had been waiting for the moment, I had been practicing in my head the language and particularly the accent.

It is all in the accent.

Anyone can speak a new language, speaking idiomatically, with the appropriate inflections and nuances is different.

It has been said by the famous Jewish-American (Anti-Zionist) linguist and writer, Noam Chomsky that after the age of five, humans lose the function of their LAD – Language Acquisition Device.

Essentially this is a neurolinguistic function which allows people to spontaneously learn idiomatic language. Live in a culture, society or place up to the age of five and you will speak like a native.

I have always had a problem with accent, standing out from the crowd. I hate people seeing me as a foreigner. (This despite ‘outsider’ being central to much of my identify) and so, it took me a year, although after that time I could speak Hebrew and sounds more or less like an Israeli native or, Sabra as they say.

It’s likely my curly black hair, complexion and ear/nose/lip shape that helped – in the early days, folk would think me a Yemenite boy. (Another altogether different accent however).

Over the past 40 years I have barely spoken Hebrew.

I’ve done my best to refine by ability to express myself in English – not always succeeding but trying.

With the passage of time, my Israeli accent has waned.

(When I returned to the UK in 1989, people told me I spoke English with an odd accent!)

I now sound different again.

In Israeli society, accent is a thing. (Likely in most cultures).

You either sound like a native-born Israeli (Sabra) (named after the Pricky-Pear cactus, supposedly, jagged on the outside and soft/sweet within) (If you’ve ever met an Israeli, this trope is generalisably apposite), or, you sound like an immigrant. An American, Russian, Scotsman or whatever who is speaking Hebrew. It is usually easy to know. The biggest tell relates to the guttural ‘r’ or Reysh that Israeli’s can roll softly from the back of their throats and others cannot.

And so, since returning to Israel now, for the most I can understand what people are saying – probably 80 to 90 per cent of the language is unchanged from 1989 – there have been new words added although mostly they are within the Hebrew lexicon of ‘Loazit’ which is English words spoken in English with a Hebrew accent, such as radio, which is raadio (accent on the ‘a’) or television – televeesia or asthma – pronounced ‘asthma’ – with the silent ‘t’ expressed) (same for ballet, in Hebrew you say ‘balet’). (In case you are wondering, all these words were in existence in the 1980’s.)

Oy, I could go on.

All this reminds me of an occasion when my school friends mocked me terribly for describing the London Underground in class.

I was talking Hebrew (accented/idiomatic to the best of my ability) and I translated ‘underground’ into Hebrew; the same word just with the rolling ‘r’s’. My friends laughed. When a native English speaker says an English word when talking Hebrew, they are meant to say those words with the native (English/French/etc) accent and then swap back to Hebrew for the remainder of the sentence.

And so, in the intervening 40 years I have lost what Israeli accent I had. Sure, I still look the part (curly hair gone). And so, I am anxious, when I speak, some words will sound idiomatic, others like a greenhorn and others like there is something wrong with me.

It was this I tried to explain to my daughter when she asked why I wasn’t speaking more Hebrew – ‘I don’t want people to think there is something wrong with me.’

(Recall Professor Feynman… What do you care what other people think?)

Sure, this is my internal prejudice. At least I have an awareness.

And the plan for today!

I am going to try to pull-off full-on Hebrew. This will mean talking to Israelis in Hebrew rather than English – yes, they might think, ‘this guy sounds odd. Has he smoked too much wacky baccy?’ I don’t care.

It is something to try and, what is the worst that can happen?

This the essence of risking failure to grow.

We all need to stretch or push-back our boundaries.

What will you do today?

Please, nothing illegal or dangerous, a tiny step into the unknown, unexplored, or unfamiliar.

You might discover something new about yourself.

Go on.

I’ll report-back tomorrow on my failure or success, little or large.

Have a good day.

A stranger in an unusual land. (The Odd Blog comes home)

Last night as our plane touched down at Ben Gurion Airport, we landed in Israel.

It’s been four years since my last visit.

Covid and life got in the way.

There is a whole story behind my visit (that led to an Easter excursion to Iceland).

I have been wondering about my indigenous nature.

When we talk of indigenous peoples, mostly, we consider the sense in which they are connected to their ancestral lands.

Whether this is Australia, New Zealand, or the Americas, there were people there before European arrived and colonised.

Once upon a time there were no humans. Anywhere. Imagine.

Colonisation is a term often used by the ‘we are Anti-Zionist by not Anti-Semitic’ lot.

The Jews colonised Palestine, they say.

The indigenous people were pushed-out, aka, the Palestinians.

Much of this is the basis of movements such as BDS which wishes for Israel’s non-existence.

It’s a conundrum at the centre of Middle and Near-Eastern politics.

When you examine the history and understand what has happened in this stretch of land along the Mediterranean’s backbone sandwiched between Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Gaza, and Egypt, you are drawn into the question of indigenousness.

‘Who was here first?’

This is where I fit in.

Even before my arrival, at the airport in London, pending the El Al flight, I looked around and saw people like me.

Mostly men (fortunately, for the women) who have similar ears, jaw, and hairlines and yes, noses.

Walking to the baggage desk, the man, Daniel, greeted me in Hebrew. An assumption that my daughter and I are one of them.

Middle Eastern, you see.

A year ago, upon receipt of my son’s DNA analysis, he learned that he is 54 per cent Ashkenazi Jewish.

His mum is a combination of all sorts, a healthy integration of nationalities.

I am a monoculture.

Monocultures are often considered bad genetic form.

The Irish Famine of 1845 was an example. Too much of the one thing and you risk collapse.

For reasons beyond my understanding, it has kept the Jews going.

None of this has been without its pitfalls.

The exiles, Pogroms, and The Final Solution.

All challenged the existence of my people, and we kept it together.

And here I am.

In the land of the bible, which before the arrival of the Israelites, the Red Sea pedestrians, was colonised by the then indigenous Canaanites.

They have long gone, washed away into history alongside the Moabites, Philistines, Midian and Edomites.

And we have persisted.

Here, I look-up.

It is my brother.

No, a man who looks just like him.

He is likely of Middle Eastern descent, perhaps his family originated from the ancient Jewish communities in Iraq, Algeria, or Aden. (It is estmiated, shortly after 1948 and the establishment of the State of Israel, upwards of a million long-term Jewish inhabitants of the Muslim world were driven-out of thier homes across Iran, Iraq, Buckara, Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia. Many of them moved-in to houses and villages previously occupied by the three quarters of a million exiled Palestinians, now in the West Bank, Gaza and other neighbouring countries)

Hard to say.

The Bible tells us that first Moses then Joshua led his people in to the Promised Land.

They didn’t behave well.

There were few if any offerings of peace.

Mostly Old Testament destruction. Fire, and brimstone. Wrath and the tumbling Jericho walls.

We can’t judge their actions by our time; this was the Bronze Age. Folk did things differently then.

If you look at a modern map of the world you will see nation-states. Mostly artificial constructs determined before or after the First and Second World Wars, when the Great Powers divvied-up.

There are the Islands such as the UK, Madagascar, and my friend Iceland that through geography, tectonic and volcanic activity have set their own borders, for the most, the line between Mauritania and Mali or Lybia and Chad are the result of some rotund Englishmen, drunk on power and Johnnie Walker.

Straight lines rarely exist in nature. Cartographers love them.

And the man who looks like my brother but is not, is a stranger. When he talks to his family, he speaks in guttural Hebrew.

In the airport are people of all nationalities from every country, excluding some of the Muslim world that exists either in a state of limbo or active war with Israel.

It, like every international airport is a melange.

A coming together of humanity.

Some with Semitic appearance, some, tattered Covid-masks, others with Hijabs or Shtreimels.

And me, and I.

On the plane I sat between a woman in her mid-eighties, born in Sheffield, now living in Modi’in. A city in the centre of Israel. She, by chance, moved to live in Israel in 1986, the year after my family and I relocated from Glasgow. We both lived in the Mercaz Klita – the absorption centre in Ra’anana, a purpose-built complex, designed to assist returning Jews in acclimatising to Israeli life.

Earlier, I ran past the Absorption Centre, my once home,.

To my right, a religious woman, decked-out in head-covering, long skirt, white shoes and socks and dangly earrings. She, from Liverpool, teaches Hebrew Studies at a school in London. She is visiting her family in Jerusalem. Yerushalayim as she calls it.

All sorts, a cocktail of humanity and me in the middle.

I turned-down the proffered Mozzarella roll, discovering the Hebrew term for vegan ‘tsimchoni’ which loosely translated means, ‘plantist’

The hostess delivered me beetroot falafel.

The old woman thought I had declined the roll, on religious grounds (the food not Kosher enough) (there are degrees of Kashrut, the Jewish dietary laws).

I didn’t tell her my preferences relate to my debt to Planet Earth and my desire to support the survival of my race, that is, humans.

In Israel I never get, ‘Are you from Italy?’ or ‘You Arab/Yemeni/Greek?’ or ‘Where do you come from?’ The petty, microaggressions as I perceive them. Usually it is an innocent (born overseas themselves) waiter, aspiring to chit-chat, instead, falling foul of the Jew-dar, ‘Glasgow, you are from Glasgow? You don’t look like you are from Glasgow!’ I then smile and look away, preferring not to recount the actions of the Assyrians, Persians, and Romans two thousand years ago.

Sure, I could say, ‘Israeli’ although that would likely lead to other questions such as, ‘You sound Scottish, how come?’ or, ‘Your family, where they from?’ (The old lady told me of a recent experience in Boots (the chemist), she informed the staff member she was from Israel, ‘I didnt realise they had people who look like you (aka normal) in Israel,’ perhaps they had been fed too much anti-Israel propaganda.) (She said she was tempted to show the woman the stubs where her horns had been trimmed).

As we waited in line at passport control, behind us stood two women, Muslim Americans, headscarves, and otherwise Western clothes. Did they feel a sense of homecoming too?

I remember the lecture I attended years ago with Clare Gerada. She described nostalgia. Derived from the Greek for pain of homecoming.

A couple of weeks ago a medical student joined me at work. She, born in London has parents from Africa.

We pseudo-empathised with our positions of outsider, the, ‘You speak very good English’ or, ‘You’re not really from London/Glasgow’ passive-aggressive or ill-intentioned emotional jabs that are directed at us when we least expect them.

Sure, my alienation is different to hers, I am a white man, which places me towards the right of centre, and, I am older, further reducing my intersectionality.

And yet, I felt an affinity.

Am I home?

Home is where the heart is, says the cliché.

Where is my heart?

It is pumping away inside my chest, thank you very much.

Let’s see how I feel after exploring some ruins later today.

Let’s take the sense of awe one experiences upon approaching the Western Wall and analyse the sentiment, later. Let’s balance that with my love of the West Coast of Scotland, the landscapes and lochs or the glimpse of a fish as I power through the water in Manvers.

We are all topsy turvy.

We are all strangers in strange lands.

Some stranger than others.

Have a good day.

The cows? What about the cattle and my dirty pants? (A Talmudic analysis of doing the right thing)

I have been listening to a new podcast recently, it is called ‘For Heaven’s Sake’ and created by an Israeli American charity called the Shalom Hartman Institute.

Mostly the format is two men, Donniel Hartman PhD, academic, philosopher, rabbi and president of the organisation (also son of the founder, Shalom) and Yossi Klein Ha-Levi an Israeli American writer, journalist and member of the faculty.

The two discuss a topic which they feel relevant to the current Jewish narrative, for example, the relationship with the Palestinian People, the Holocaust, Anti-Semitism and so on. They then listen to a rabbinic analysis by US based scholar Elana Stein Hain. Elana is deeply-versed in Jewish texts including the Old Testament as well as the Talmud – the commentary composed during one of the Jews’ many exiles, this time it was in Babylon (Iraq).

They talk about all sorts from a Left-Leaning dimension although their narrative is more sophisticated; suffice it to say they are non-partisan – for example, it is clear they think Trump a ‘meshugine’ (my words) and Biden the right guy for the job, yet they won’t state this explicitly. Their views on Bibi, the Palestinians and the rest of the Arab world are equally Left of Centre.

Anyway.

I want to get to the cows.

Possibly my favourite section of the podcast beyond listening to the learned to and fro of Donniel and Yossi is Elana’s analysis.

It takes me back to my time at school in Israel.

There is a separate subject taught in the schools called ‘Tanach’ which is The Old Testament, it stands for, Torah (the Five Books of Moses), Neviim (the Prophets) and Ketuvim (the Writings) – everything else, the Books of Chronicles, Kings and Judges, for example.

If you take the Bible at face-value, it doesn’t tell you much. Sure, it is a pseudo-historical document (written hundreds if not thousands of years after the fact), it also contains the 613 Mitzvot (Commandments/rules).

If that was the extent it wouldn’t be as profound a text, it wouldn’t keep tens of thousands of scholars studying over the centuries.

It is the commentary or the Mishnah and Gemara, written by the rabbis both during their exile and their time in the Land of Israel that are fascinating.

Essentially, these are the reflections of people such as Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki), Rabbis Akiva and Hillel and The Rambam (Maimonides), where sections, often phrases, as little as a few words are taken and chewed over, analysed, weighed and interpreted.

If you open the Talmud you see the central text surrounded by the various commentaries from the ages – it is these discussions or lessons that are the real stuff that are the Jewish tradition.

In school, this was something I loved. One example I remember was the discussion of an apple tree – if it grows in your garden, the apples are yours, yet if the tree stretches into your neighbour’s garden, even though the tree is yours, they can eat the apples.

Minutiae like this, dissections of everyday life.

And now the cows.

The story relates to a discussion about water.

Last week in Israel it was 40 degrees centigrade.

Water is a major topic in the Middle East.

In the olden times one group of people had access to a well. The well had enough water to allow that group to drink and survive.

Now imagine, another tribe appeared and asked for access to the water. If they drink, there might not be enough for both groups.

What should you do?

Tell them to find their own well? Let them die? Share the water and risk mutual harm?

Most would argue that in times of difficulty, the right thing is to share the water.

The next question is, if the tribe has enough water for themselves and their cattle, what happens when the others ask for a drink. Do you share? This might risk the death of your cattle. Your people might starve, your favourite cow might perish, then what? Well, the life of a person is surely more important than the life of a cow although the equation is more complicated than the first.

Now is the tricky part.

What if the first tribe has enough water for themselves, their cattle, and adequate to wash their clothes. On this occasion, should they share?

Of course! You say, clothing isn’t human life, water must be shared. Who cares about dirty pants?

And this is the lesson.

As although superficially, we argue that the water should be shared, what is the reality?

The reality when you look around, not in ancient times, but today, we have people struggling everywhere, at home and abroad. Homelessness, inequality, disease, poverty. Planet Earth has never been more productive and yet the gap between those who have and have not has never been wider.

And what do we do?

Do we share our wealth? Do we forsake our summer holiday, new gadget, or car (the dirty clothes) and share our riches or, do we look the other way?

Yes, we look away.

For although the ethical perspective is to share, the reality is different.

It is easy to look at a hypothetical and suggest actions or solutions, when this affects you directly, the calculus alters. (Yes, you vote Tory/Republican).

The lesson?

We are all limited by our experiences and values. What is nice or right to do isn’t always what we do and, when we judge others, ‘look at them, they didn’t share their water/resources/wealth’ we should first look at ourselves and the ways in which we behave before considering others.

You can find a link to the podcast here.

Health, VO2, The Freemasons, and my blog

I began this blog in 2015.

There was a lot happening in my life at that time.

I was working in Doncaster.

Before Covid.

I had just completed my MSc and was feeling dispirited.

I was frustrated with work and the NHS.

I found myself contemplating death.

I don’t fear much in life beyond harm befalling those I love and, sudden death.

I have no problem with all the other forms of demise,

I struggle with the suddenness which robs you of the option to say goodbye.

As to why goodbye should be of such importance, I don’t know.

I have long been an advocate of forgetting or not-remembering birthdays, anniversaries and gift-card celebrations (e.g., Father’s Day) as my mantra has always been, ‘It’s not how you treat your mum/dad/granny/dog on that >gift-card store determined day< it’s how you behave the other 364 days that matter.’

Actions speak louder than words.

And so, I shouldn’t really mind if I drop dead in the next 10 minutes; I have a trove of deeds & blogs that should keep everyone going.

Nevertheless, that wasn’t my mindset in 2015.

I thought I would write the blog as a swansong,

Something to leave behind for my friends and family to look back upon after I had turned to crust/rust/dust.

The wheels of time jarred.

I lived.

In 2017, I moved jobs. There were ups and downs, then the pandemic.

All an existential threat to my and everyone’s survival.

Instead of investing in my mental and physical wellbeing I used to double-mask and douse my head with alcohol gel upon exiting the Covid ward. (Ears too floppy for triple mask).

Something happened in 2022.

Two people are responsible.

I began intermittent fasting (N) and completed Couch to 5K (A).

And I kept going.

On Saturday I swam 3k, ran 5k, cycled 20k and took my dogs on a long meandering walk through Clumber Park.

I’ve never been much of a doctor for data.

Sure, I pretend it matters.

‘The data suggests,’ I might say at times of need, yet, I am much more, what I used to tell my kids when they asked, ‘What sort of doctor are you?’ ‘Touchy feely’ – as a geriatrician, I don’t fit nicely into an organ-specific box – heart/lung/pancreas, instead, I use my feelings and emotions to engage with patients, to understand their ills and find ways to support (not necessarily treat).

Different to a psychiatrist, who is a doctor of the mind, I see myself as one who tends to the heart, the spirit, the soul.

It is hard to measure fear or worry or anxiety (I know some people have ‘validated’ measurement tools, they are not for me.)

And so, I drift through a world of feeling and emotion.

It is my natural habitat.

I am far more comfortable managing emotions than statistical analyses. (If I am treating you for your blood pressure, don’t worry, I have the capacity to parallel process).

And the data.

Or before the data is where I am and how I feel.

Pretty good.

And the data is representative.

All gleaned from my watch.

Some of you might think, bejeesus, I didn’t realise you had been so unfit. Well, that is me – open and honest.

You, master of the riser-recliner, can do the same.

And what about Freemasonry?

Well, my dad was one.

I don’t know if he would be angry at my revealing this on the blog. I am sure not. There is a difference between announcing your Freemasonry and revealing the secrets.

Well.

I learned the secrets last week too.

They are, if what I was told is true:

be kind

be curious

fear death

Nothing particularly esoteric.

I am not in the society and yet, these secrets are at the heart of who I am.

They are me and I am them.

Coincidence?

Perhaps my dad encouraged this in me, without my knowing.

Be kind

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you

Be curious

Realise that there is more to the world than chat/game/reality TV

Fear death

Work in the direction of life, sustain health and wellbeing.

There is more to be said.

If you are interested in learning more about the Masons, you can follow this link to The Rest Is History Podcast.

Milk

‘De-caff Americano with oat milk,’

I ask the barista.

He nods and away we go.

Last week, I learned something else that further alienated me from my land-owning fellow citizens.

The farmers.

Before I begin,

This takes me back to 1993.

I was staying in a bed and breakfast in Port Augustus

A small town at the tip of Loch Ness.

It was the rural component of my medical training.

I spent a month with a country GP.

He was Dr Farmer.

I imagine he is now retired.

Anyway,

I recall the conversations in the surgery where he would phone a patient,

‘Hello, it’s Dr Farmer,’

‘Farmer?’

‘Yes, I wondered how you were keeping.’

‘You’re a farmer?’

You get the joke.

(Don’t even mention doctor banker, butcher or candlemaker).

This almost happened to me recently with a patient also called Farmer.

I presumed he was a farmer too.

I’ve developed a paranoia.

Remember, a few weeks ago, I mentioned the altercation with the angry man?

‘Get off my land!’ He shouted as I was jogging on a Bank Holiday Monday.

This brought back all the other times angry (always white men) have shouted at me to ‘get of my land!’

I hate the land thing.

Now, when I run or cycle off-road I am constantly on the lookout for footpaths and bridleways, for fear of wandering where I shouldn’t.

The other week I was even told off for swimming in the wrong place. That really pissed me off.

As I’ve said before, it doesn’t happen in Scotland.

There is a right to roam, so long as you aren’t damaging property and you aren’t walking through a rifle-range, you can go where you like.

Not so in England

(I note Labour’s plan to introduce this when they are next elected… Guys, I will hold you to that!)

Anyway,

Milk.

I’ve been giving up meat and animal products.

My main motivation is planetary – environmental. It doesn’t make sense for me to drive my electric car and eat cow or sheep. Neither does the greening of my garden (I’ve gone for part-wild this year) or my love of nature, resonate with killing pigs and ducklings.

Earth is fast out of resources, it is an over-crowded mess that is getting worse as the population grows past nine then ten billion.

We can’t sustain meat-eating and a reliance on dairy.

The numbers don’t add up.

You can’t have more and more people eating more and more McDonalds and avoid environmental collapse.

Have you ever seen that experiment, I think from the 70’s where they keep rats in an enclosure and allow them to breed with limited access to food? You can imagine what happens.

We are doing that already.

Metaphorically,

The way the 1% overindulge at the expense of the rest.

And,

Back to milk.

Milk comes from cows (unless you are talking general mammalian milk).

Over recent years, the amount of milk individual cows produce has increased phenomenally.

Scientists working with our friends the farmers have discovered ways to manipulate cows to produce more and more milk, they consequently spend longer and longer attached to pumps that squeeze their udders. Which are their breasts.

To lactate, cows much have babies, little calves that are taken away at a young age, fattened then killed.

Ever met a cow? They have a philosophical gaze. Who knows what they are thinking. People are often contemptuous of cows and sheep for their passivity. What choice do they have? Lambs to the slaughter.

I will not go into the science, the deforestation that creates land to rear cattle, the methane and so on.

It is the milk that is bothering me.

Last year I stopped drinking cow’s milk.

Nothing to do with my own gut’s maladaptive fermentation (think Howard @BBT), more the reality that when milk substitutes exist made from oat, almond, pea and cashew, why be linked with the suffering of cows? (Or camels if you are in Arabia).

And that’s where I am.

Any milk will do, my lack of taste sensitivity allows me to pop any form of plant-milk into my coffee.

And it was last week I learned that oat milk and its relations can’t be called or labelled as milk.

The milk industry (in Europe) successfully lobbied the government to create a law that prevents this.

And so, if you pop to the supermarket, you will find non-cow milk beside the milk, except it is called other things, not milk.

And this from the petty farming industry that should be downsizing and switching from animal to oat and almond production (OK you can’t grow almonds in the UK, another Brexit boob).

And this reality is so prevalent that none of us even notice.

We live in blindness.

In ignorance.

Manipulated outside our awareness.

The farmers have it

As do the landowners

And the gentry

And you, on your council estate,

Choking from the fumes of the Frankenchicken lorries that deliver to your local fast-food outlet are none the wiser.

What can we do?

Go on, try some oat milk today. You won’t regret it.

Person-centred me, person you.

It’s all about me,

It’s all about me baby.

I paraphrase/manipulate/distort.

As you move East, humans become more collectivist in their outlook. (So says Jared Diamond in Germs, Guns and Steel).

Westwards, you have the individual.

there is me and there are us.

Which do you prefer?

In the UK we are more and more about the individual.

Occasionally we break from our shell,

We clap in the streets for the selflessness of NHS and other frontline workers,

We chang language to transform cleaners and delivery people

into essential workers,

As a balm to allow them to continue during the pandemic,

serving us, delivering our Amazon essential.

As they die in their thousands.

Afterwards, we vote for the individual

What matters to me

Not us.

In healthcare I have been focused on the person for years.

The long-running publication, ‘This is me’ created by the Alzheimer’s Society to support the survival of people living with dementia during their time in acute hospital care is an example.

And this, I think, is because when you move from being a citizen, an ordinary Jo as they say, you transform from individual to object, from Peter, Paul or Mary to asthmatic, diabetic, metastatic.

The pulling-apart of the person is destructive.

Sure, it makes the doctoring easy.

When you only have to deal with the rash not the person attached to the lump or bump you have free-reign. Things become more complicated when someone is attached. An individual with their own ideas, ‘I don’t want to have it cut-off,’ for example.

All of this is a balancing act.

Me, you, us, them.

Once you start considering personal pronouns it becomes even more complicated.

They, thon and so on.

Should we move away from the individual and focus instead on the collective?

Adopt a utilitarianism?

Or, is that what they want us to think?

They the 1%, those who manipulate the media and politics, nudging us into a sense of scarcity.

Better by 100 toilet rolls and six-dozen eggs today, you never know about tomorrow.

Or, is this all a foil?

We, that is me, the representation of Western Society is actually living in a country of such affluence that we have enough money, resource, time and space to spend on every person, to individualise care and treatment, to make the hospital, the treatment or investigation tailored to the needs of the subject.

No need to sacrifice the few for the many. There are enough CTs and paracetamols to go around everyone many times over.

I can’t help it.

I work as a one-to-one doctor.

There are the epidemiologists who perhaps are able to see the bigger picture; they are not sitting in an armchair next to a person who has lost the ability to toilet or feed themselves, who experiences pain upon moment, who is unable to sleep-away the suffering.

Remember, suffering is like a gas.

It fills the space available.

My pain and your pain are apples and pears.

We are not conjoined twins,

Rather planets orbiting different suns.

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you

That is,

Unless you want others to mess with you

Don’t mess with me.

I’d rather avoid the party

Or dinner dance

Or late night celebration.

Some like silent night

Others,

Noise and bustle.

The Lord God made us so

Or so it goes.

Let’s consider

Which size fits.

It’s all about you,

It’s all about you baby.

10k, little injuries, niggles / frailty, and rebirth.

I haven’t written in a few weeks,

On most Saturdays

and Sundays these summer days,

early,

crepuscular time,

I am off,

At the lake

Wetsuit and goggles.

Today,

Is the Don Valley 10k.

I have my name on the list,

There is a number waiting,

a medal and t-shirt at the end

and I am at home.

My ankle hurts.

The left one

To be precise.

Last week I

Ran too far,

actually, a similar 10K, perhaps not enough warming up

Or cooling down.

You see,

As I age,

I have acquired aches and pains that never used to bother me.

Sure,

I’d occasionally sprain my knee or ankle,

Things would settle and all would be well.

Now,

little injuries,

niggles,

Add-up and some remain.

They don’t go away.

They never get recover.

They become part of the whole – me plus.

As I age, I acquire.

Anne would use the barnacle analogy.

I sometimes talk about it in lectures.

We,

Are like ships, our bodies ageing,

with time,

On our passage through the sea,

we acquire barnacles,

adhering to our hull; they grow and accumulate.

I am a crusty old sea-fart and only 50.

And so too the reality that is ageing,

And the acquisition of frailty.

So much of ageing is losing.

Lost opportunity,

Lost health,

Lost friends and family,

Lost resilience.

And yet,

As we age, we gain,

Aches and pains,

diseases and ailments.

Frailty is a progressive decline in resilience,

It is a loss and a gain.

A football

Sans bounce.

With increasing frailty,

Our ability to recover from illness and disease reduces.

Age 20, I can break my leg and six months later train for a marathon,

Age 90, I am in a care home, facing the wall.

With each little episode

With the passage of time

From this winter to the next

Our abilities wind-down.

First the raised cholesterol

And blood pressure

Then, the heart disease

And the angina or stroke

And the arthritis

And polypharmacy

And falls

Then the confusion

The decline into dementia and dependence.

Our lives are mapped out from before we are born,

In our genes and in our environment,

Rich or poor we will live to be old at 70 or young at 90.

And so too

My ankle.

It aches.

Not swollen;

full range of movement,

Although tiny thread-veins have appeared over recent years

Likely gravity

Disrupting my venous return.

Do fewer people have varicose veins these days?

I don’t remember the last time I saw one.

I remember my granddad’s legs,

His veins would bulge,

On Glasgow summer afternoons

As he sat in the Melford garden,

Baggy shorts

And sandals and socks.

No, it’s not all bad.

Ageing has its advantages,

There is the experience,

The, ‘I know this feeling,’

‘I know what is coming, I had better re-route and prepare for the low,’

It is seeing the world,

Our existential monad

Perceiving reality albeit through tired, scarred eyes

That do not perceive the ageing body

But feel the warmth of the sun

And allow us to feel like 19

Despite our wrinkly carapace.

I might look a hundred,

I feel like 21

Says the old geezer

As he pedals his bike up the hill,

Panting,

Shaking,

toothy grimace &

receding gumline.

This morning,

Out with the dogs

We saw four Canada geese families,

One is pictured.

I loved the symmetry.

I respected the parent’s hiss.

The earth, round and round

with one final turn.

I Jog on.

It would have been funny had they been barnacle geese

The King and I

I am worried about next weekend.

It is the coronation of King Charles.

I gather he is the third.

I restrained myself when the Queen died, she did, after all, die, and it is never great to celebrate someone’s passing.

I put to one side all my thoughts about the crown and colonialism, all the badness that is inherent in the English aristocracy – the landowners, the men in Burberry Range Rovers, the fox hunting, the Tory heartlands singing Rule Britannia, the Britain that was mocked so successfully by Matt Lucas and David Walliams in the now dated Little Britain.

We have been invited to a garden party.

Fortunately, I have plans, to be somewhere else.

I struggle with all the flags and the banners and bunting, Charles’ punim on balloons, mugs and posters, the English ability to lay aside all the history and revel in the moment, the taxpayer’s celebration, just, as the numbers of homeless on the streets of our cities increases, just as we arrest refugees and plot their deportation to Rwanda.

I think historically of the story of Exodus.

Not the one involving Moses, the novel by Leon Uris describing the ill-fated journey of the steam-boat Exodus, captured 40 miles off the coast of Palestine in 1947 and the forced repatriation of 5,000 Holocaust survivors back to Europe.

I think of the farmer screaming for me to ‘get off his land’ as I harmlessly walk my dog, I think of Perfidious Albion. Of Bloody Sunday and the Irish Famine.

It all comes at once.

On Thursday I was involved in my first ever road-rage.

A woman was annoyed that I pulled into her lane (after indicating), she accelerated beside me, lowered her window, and screamed that I was a useless bastard (or words to that effect) (I couldn’t hear her as my window was up). She then pulled in front, slowed and switched on her hazard lights, all the time gesticulating furiously. Fortunately, she then drove-off, I imagine, to purchase a disposable barbecue and some bunting.

I think of the Royals, and I see unabashed privilege; I perceive farmers, hedge-fund managers, Jeffrey Epstein aspirants, stockbrokers and all who are destroying the planet.

And so, I am anxious, worried about how I might behave or might be expected to behave.

Yesterday I heard there is a plan for people to swear their allegiance to the King.

I almost choked on my cornflakes; had I been eating them.

I don’t understand the behaviour.

It seems to run deep in a psyche that has passed me by.

Perhaps it is because I am Scottish, or Jewish.

And yet, there will be plenty of Scottish Jews I am sure, singing God Save the King next weekend.

I suspect Colin Wilson (writer), were he still alive, would say, ‘Don’t worry, you stand outside of all of that, you are you.’

This, for me, leads to a question about autism.

Which was the original intention of this blog (called, provisionally, ‘Autism and I’) although subsequently deleted.

Last night I completed a few online autism questionnaires.

It seems I score quite highly on certain measures – most notably my sensitivity to noise, preference for lots of alone time and my inability to remember birthdays.

No, this doesn’t mean I am autistic, although it might suggest I am somewhere on what is called the spectrum, unclear as whether at the red or the violet end.

It is true that many things that people enjoy I dislike.

Such as Strictly and The Bake-Off; my Mary Berry chagrin is a running-joke in our household.

I find connections between unexpected ideas, I can obsessively chew gum, I am very good at recognising subtle changes in peoples’ appearance, all these, I am informed, are traits.

Who knows? And does it matter?

My brother asked me this last night.

Autism, does it matter? There is nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so, to paraphrase Shakespeare and Marcus Aurelius.

Over recent years, within the world of autism, the terminology of neurotypical and neurodivergent has become part of our language.

The former being the state that the majority represent, within the diversity of human experience and neurodivergent, the state that those on the spectrum occupy.

Again, does it matter?

Well, society can be cruel.

It tends to favour the needs, aspirations, and behaviours of the majority (we call these people normal) and if you fall outside this (also a spectrum) you have a problem.

(It’s mad to be normal, said RD Laing)

So long as you are quiet about your problem no one really bothers; when you start expressing your thoughts, people notice.

RD Laing also famously said the difference between a neurotic and a psychotic person was that one caused problems for themselves (the neurotic) and the other, the psychotic, problems for others. (I paraphrase).

Keeping quiet about my distain for the Crown would likely not raise eyebrows, expressing a preference might.

I have sometimes wondered what I would do if, say, the Tory Prime Minster were to visit me at work. You know, those TV set-ups where the politician stalks a hospital ward with tie tucked-in to shirt, watch (Patek Philippe) in pocket and shirt sleeves rolled up to elbows (thank you Hunt).

Would I stay quiet and shake the hand or would I have a go? Would I be the have-a-go hero you sometimes see on election campaigns when politicians go to ‘meet the people?’

Who knows.

I suspect decorum would intervene and I would play along.

I am a wimp.

It is one thing sitting at a keyboard and another upsetting your general manager or chief executive.

Getting back to my brother’s question, ‘What is the point? Why assign the diagnosis? Where does it take us?’

Well, I believe that for those who are neurodivergent, that is, people who see the world differently to the majority because of a genetic inheritance or a twist of fate are legitimate like everyone else.

Neurodivergence can result in fantastic acts of creativity and originality (please, please, someone listen to Blindboy (You can read about him in the New York Times here!)) And, so long as no one is harmed, people should be allowed to get on with their lives without fear of repercussion or the risk of a clinical diagnosis and subsequent medication.

I am me.

I am not you.

The me, that is me, is as valid as you.

That is all we need.

If my preference is for silence, please respect me.

I will wear my earplugs and allow you to get-on with your noisemaking.

Many years ago, it was three in the morning, walking home from a nightclub, I remember passing the Medical Sciences Institute in Dundee, seeing the lights on in the labs and commenting to my friend, ‘I wish I was there.’

My friend, I think took offence, or perhaps just thought, ‘Weirdo,’ for me, however, I had just spent an evening in meaningless dancing and drinking, for the researchers, they were hard at work, perhaps unravelling the genome or something equally amazing or trivial (it might have been the cleaning staff).

And these reflections have provided for me insight into that statement.

We each enjoy different things, ‘Come on, you will enjoy yourself,’ says my friend, ‘No, I’d prefer to read my book,’ I reply.

Difference, divergence.

We all walk different paths.

Multiverse & I (a bank holiday amble through time and space)

Ever thought,

If only,

I could have that time again?

to re-run events,

History?

Ever considered,

What might have been, had, I done or not?

Life is not a dress-rehearsal

or so we are told by Kundera,

One chance to make best use the time available

And then,

Snap,

It is over.

Time is our most precious commodity,

more valuable

Than Mammon

Than all the dollars stacked-up in the offshore accounts

of the rich and famous,

Intangible

Momentary

and precious.

My committing my time to you is an act of faith,

Or, if your will, love.

I have had a lifelong frustration with people who keep me waiting.

You know who you are

Although you are likely

Not reading this

As you missed the bus or overslept and are behind.

From my father, I inherited, a habit for early arrival,

Which if frustrated can lead to angst,

Watch-watching and upset tummy,

‘Always better to be a few minutes early,’

I can hear him saying

As we sit waiting,

Half an hour before the start.

My dad and I

had a thing for watches,

different timepieces.

After he died, I found loads of watches in his bedside drawer.

Not Rolexes or Patek Philippes,

Just,

What you might call shmattes,

Digital or analogue, it didn’t matter.

(Another Kersh had a watch-thing – L Kersh of London, see the headline photo for his Horological Collage)

Before the arrival of the Apple Watch, I was the same,

Constantly on the lookout for a watch that would,

say something to me or about me.

Wrist-bling.

When I was 14 my brother bought me a digital watch that contained mercury in a glass vial, as the watch moved it closed a circuit that enabled me to calculate speed and distance. It broke; the mercury slithered away. That might have been the beginning.

I have a love of time-travel books and films.

I remember watching Back to the Future,

on TV at my brother’s house in Cornwall.

1989.

And, subsequently, a long list of travels in time books and films.

Netflix has a section.

And, what is the fascination with time?

Why not focus on the present?

The present is evanescent,

The past, well, you have something to work with.

Quantum Mechanics, if I understand

Tells us that all past and present are one,

The future is an infinite range of possibilities.

Yesterday, I finished Dean Koontzs’ book, From the Corner of his Eye

A long novel about obsession and the multiple possibilities of life

Through a Quantum lens.

Three of the characters have an ability to review, experience or enter the Quantum Space (think Ant Man), like Stephen King’s shining although more focused on the verisimilitude of time and space.

Last week,

I joined a meeting with Claudius van Wyk, the South African, phiosopher, holist and writer. He and a group of five or six came together to talk about holism – that is the Jan Smuts’ concept of the inter-connectedness of the world allayed with the Gravesian idea of Spiral Dynamics (apologies for too much technical-speak).

It was a far-ranging conversation which started with Shakespeare’s, ‘For there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so,’ crossed over the multiverse (with allusions to Everything Everywhere All at Once) and ended with George Bernard Shaw’s ‘The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.’

I was tempted to throw-in Mokusatsu but didn’t.

I don’t want to go into the possible intersections of my life, suffice it to say, that none of that matters, for had things been different, I would risk my present being other (even though it is other in all the universes I inhabit), this one, the blog-guy, this flawed individual with a swimming obsession, whose dogs can’t keep out of the mud, whose tortoise ate half an apple last yesterday. Me, here, now.

A few weeks ago, Good Friday, I went swimming.

It was early (weekday swims are seven to eight).

Driving home, just after eight, in the village next to mine, a deer ran beside my car. Short, half-grown antlers, it looked at me then bounded intto the fields.

Around me, in South Yorkshire, despite all the cars, farms and pollution, deer roam.

On the water walk there used to be a few; I haven’t seen them in a year.

Roe deer are not small.

Of reasonable size, they create paths through the fields and yet, they are rarely seen.

I think of Richard Parker, the tiger in the Life of Pi.

He too is out there somewhere,

Able to remain motionless as people pass,

Hidden in the foreground,

Breathing slowed and muscles silent.

What else is out there that we can’t see or know?

Bereavement. A week?

I have been thinking about bereavement.

When I was younger, and nowadays, the allocated time for leave after the death of a parent is a week.

Death comes in all forms and at all times.

The death of a spouse or child are special types of grief that aren’t included in this reflection.

For a sibling death, or a friend, I think the context is dominant.

Or, rather, age.

A death at 90 is considered within the natural progression of events.

It is likely that our planet was not designed for humans to live such long lives, although in ancient (biblical) times, people did live to be very old, most famously Methuselah who died at 969.

I suspect by the time Methuselah passed-on, everyone else he knew had gone too, his children, spouse, siblings, friends.

It must have been like starring in your own episode of one of those fictions where people don’t age or keep being reborn with an ongoing consciousness. (The Time Traveller’s Wife, How to Stop Time, The Age of Adeline).

Very old age can be lonely.

I have frequently been told by those in their nineties that all their friends and family have died.

Anyway, back to parental death.

The death of a parent is for most, a twice-off event. I guess, if you are adopted you might have your biological or birth parents and those who have raised you.

For the majority, for you, me, we have one mum, one dad.

When they are gone, you are on your own.

An orphan.

With the changes in society, with people living longer and healthier lives (so long as they are not socioeconomically deprived), fewer people experience death and when it comes, they are older.

In pre-Victorian times (and in Africa, today), parents experiencing the deaths of multiple children was not uncommon and for children to have their parents die before they reach adulthood was an everyday occurrence.

Today, most people haven’t witnessed someone dying until they are very old.

Our society is detached, separated from death.

In half of cases, death is clinically sanitised in a hospital; white sheets, oxygen mask and intravenous cannula attached.

And this is the question I pose.

As I said at the beginning, the tradition (in the UK at least) is a week of absence from work; enough time to arrange a funeral, begin the house clear-out or the letters/emails to banks, building societies and mobile phone companies.

Is that enough?

In our society that has changed over the past 50 years and continues to change at an ever-accelerating pace, should bereavement be redefined? Should there be a different acceptance as to what is, OK? How individualised should this become?

Mostly death, or dying, is about the person who is leaving, that is, until they lose awareness, and then, it is about the family or the friends.

Everyone has a different relationship with their parents.

Some never see their mum and dad from one month or year to the next, others continue with a close association, spending time with them every day until the end.

In the local community where I work, it is not uncommon for families to live on the same street or round the corner.

I can only imagine or dream what that might be like. Popping round daily to my brother or my mum and dad’s house, rather than the distances that have been constants throughout my adult life. And this I suspect has an influence on relationships and grief.

Grief, unlike death is the ultimately person-centred experience.

You can’t compare grief, it is like Victor Frankl’s suffering – unique to the individual; like a gas, it expands to fill the space available.

Where have we gone-wrong?

I think the flaw in our society is our lack of openness and discussion.

Over recent years, death cafes have opened in the UK and US.

These are events where people meet to discuss death.

Not in a morbid way, but in a reflection or celebration of life.

Which, makes me think of my half-completed death book, I’m dead, now what?

Seeking a normalisation of dying is not bad.

Death can provide meaning.

It can provide context and insight.

Without an open discussion of death, we are left behaving in a stereotypical fashion, one where people do what they do because they think they are expected to behave in certain ways, like my blog of years ago, wishing people, ‘a long life’ as is the tradition at Jewish funerals without a sense of what a long-life is or what it means or connotes.

Following the crowd is a diversion from person-centredness.

Grief should be made to measure.

Tailored to the person left behind.

Death and person-centredness. See here. In an act of synchronicity, sent to me by my brother today.

Have you read this or my other blogs and not read Man’s Search for Meaning?If not, please buy.

Link to my forthcoming converstation on good death, bad death, follow this link on the 10th of May 12 to 1pm

Breastfeeding and a general party political rant.

I have never written about breastfeeding.

Most of my blogs, when not discussing the outcomes of ageing and frailty or my place in the world reflect my everyday experience.

I don’t have much breastfeeding experience.

This week I learned that of the 760 babies born in my local hospital, only 189 were exclusively breastfed from birth, most, that is, 459 (or thereabouts – some of the data is missing) receive only formula.

These numbers, as percentages are 25 and 60 percent respectively.

In other words, for those of you who are not Rishi-numerate, over twice as many mothers bottle-feed from birth as breast.

You can work-out the demographics of my local hospital from this data.

In the more affluent parts of the country more women breast feed, and, with inequality, poverty and deprivation, more resort to the bottle.

I couldn’t find data for England & Wales (the conspiracy theorist in me thinks it is hidden by forumal company SEOs)

I want to be careful here. I am not judging. Yes, all the evidence suggests that breast is best, however, the causes for women deciding breast or bottle are many and complicated.

This is not my area of expertise, and I won’t analyse.

I suspect many women carry a sense of guilt when they cannot or are forced into situations of being unable to breastfeed.

At another meeting I attended this week we discussed variation and deprivation in general.

I don’t have the statistics here – you can look them up if you are interested; for the most, those living in areas of socioeconomic deprivation will live shorter, less healthy lives than those born into and living in the most affluent. This, in some instanced is almost 20 years more of life.

With deprivation comes higher rates of cancer, stroke, heart and respiratory disease, more obesity, depression, anxiety, drug and alcohol use and abuse.

In the area I work, it is no uncommon for a man in his early 60’s, facing an imminent death to consider they have had a ‘good innings’ – levels of expectation are so low, outsiders would find it hard to conceive.

I went swimming this morning (affluent sport in the UK) and afterwards drove to the local shopping centre (affluent).

I took this photo.

It made me wonder why the breastfeeding area is often both beside the toilets and where you change babies’ nappies.

Why is baby dinnertime provided in a place of faeces and nappy changes?

Our society is screwed-up.

Tomorrow marks the 91st anniversary of the Kinder Trespass.

You can read more here.

This was a mark of defiance in 1932 by 400 people who walked across private land in the Peak District. Six were arrested.

The first Kinder Trespass was organised by the Jewish anti-fascist, **Benny Rothman**

This led to a minor change in the law and now there is a right to roam across approximately eight per cent of the countryside (in England) – in Scotland, Norway, or Sweden you can wander anywhere. The cry, ‘Get off my land’ as happened to me on Easter Friday doesn’t happen.

England is a place of landed gentry and country squires.

We, regardless of our privilege or affluence must toe-the-line. Keep to the path and not stray.

So long as the order is maintained everyone is happy.

Well, the landowners are happy.

They live long, healthy lives, unaffected by the Tory austerity that has killed hundreds of thousands of predominantly poor people.

(One death, a tragedy, 300,000, a statistic, (to paraphrase Stalin) – he would delight in the Tory achievements).

No one imagines that there will ever be a situation where all people are equal, where my worth is the same as that of the guy in the castle (or rocket ship), we can however hope, with this century’s technological wonders to approach a diminution of inequality.

I suspect many don’t want to acknowledge their deprivation; others perhaps don’t see it, like my patients who are happy getting to 63 years old then dying.

I guess that is what ‘they’ want.

They want to sell us bottled milk and milk bottles and brushes and sterilising machines and timers and all the other paraphenalia, they want to render us so very uncertain of ourselves that we will accept anything.

The Deputy Prime Minister (I think that was his role – the British government keeps changing… hard to keep track) resigned yesterday.

He was found guilty of bullying.

He denies these allegations and claims that people were ideologically motivated to oppose him; this gave him laissez-faire to shout at his staff, to intimidate and threaten.

Does this surprise me? The bully blaming the people he has bullied. No.

Britain currently sits pretty with its inequality, its status quo.

We must do something.

Canine Consciousness, the plants know more than we think, our individuality, and an argument with the wind.

I couldn’t sleep last night.

A too late, too salty curry woke me at 2am

I couldn’t find my Kindle, (Myron Bolitar, Book 7).

And,

Instead read the Guardian.

An interview with Stefano Mancuso the Florentine professor researching plant consciousness, or, more precisely, as he calls it, the neurobiology of plants.

How they sense and interact with the world.

Yesterday I travelled with the family to Fraisthorpe,

A beach off the East Coast of Yorkshire.

It is beautiful,

A wide expanse of sea and sand

Just down from Bridlington.

Blake, our Cocker Spaniel

Ran up and down the beach,

Laser-focused on his orange ball.

I let Stella off the lead.

Stella is a Sprointer.

She is, what happens when you cross a Springer Spaniel with a Pointer.

She has big droopy ears and sensitive eyes.

Almost always, we keep Stella on the lead as she has little ‘recall’ – this being a dog’s ability to return to its owner when called.

Blake is a recall champion, Stella not.

Some of this is nature; Blake and his breed have been developed for years to focus and retrieve game birds or in his current existence, orange balls.

Stella, not.

We acquired Stella during Covid.

My old dog Maisie was diagnosed very late with stomach cancer and in my grief-state, alongside the rest of the country I reached-out for another dog.

We found her at a place in the Midlands.

She was a wary creature. Timid to the point of defensive fearfulness, her terror was so great she wouldn’t leave the crate she was occupying, not for a ball, not for a treat.

The people at the dog-place managed to manhandle her out of the cage and she eventually ran around the paddock for us.

We realised that she was likely a dog who had experienced deep trauma, took her-on, brought her home and I began the work of introducing her to life.

Today she is ‘mostly’ normal; she has her quirks. She is very attached to me and if, for some reason, perhaps a door has closed and she can’t access me, she will stand in the kitchen and pee.

She is very defensive around food and until Blake arrived didn’t know how to open doors (he showed her).

I didn’t really want to focus too much on Stella’s history although it is all relevant.

Further investigation at the time of our obtaining Stella revealed that she originally came from a dog trainer in Northern Ireland; a company that trains dogs to detect drugs and explosives. She had been rejected for although she has a good nose, her fearfulness wouldn’t have been good during a bomb scare.

And so, yesterday, Stella was running. Running free. She can run very fast although she rarely gets the opportunity (we sometimes take her to a local paddock/play-place), otherwise she is on the lead.

She joined-in with the ball run and retrieval, she looked as happy as, well, judge for yourself.

At Fraisthorpe, the beach is bordered by a sandy, loam wall which varies in height between one to two metres high. This is mostly adequate to keep Stella with us.

Yesterday she managed, after running free for an hour to scramble up the side.

She had attempted a couple of times although had been unsuccessful and returned to the offer of a fishy treat.

Eventually, she managed to pull herself up and was away.

She literally, did a pull-up; this is not easy for a dog.

It was as if the attraction of ‘up there’ was an order of magnitude greater than the orange ball and the beach.

And, she was off.

Very quickly she disappeared.

Across the field.

If you read Friday’s blog you might know what I was thinking, ‘Crap, a farmer will shoot her.’

Fortunately, there were no sheep or cows, just open fields of stubble and new grass.

She ran. Head down, focused, sniffing.

She chased pheasants, quails and at least one hare.

She was in and out of bogs, up and down dykes.

I pursued.

Shouting ‘Stella!’ ‘Come’ ‘Here!’

The sounds did not register.

I could see her, in the distance, face down, focused, at one with the smells.

And this, is the point of today’s blog.

At different times during the search (Apple tag wasn’t any help, fortunately the area in the East of Yorkshire is very flat with subtle undulations, and I was wearing my glasses – I could therefore see her at distance.) I became frustrated.

‘Damn dog,’ I thought, and ‘This is the last time…’ Or ‘Never again, I’ll never bring her here again…’

You know, the kind of negative, self-talk that drives some of us at times quite crazy.

She was sniffing.

Oblivious.

Fortunately, it was a nice day. The sun was shining, and no farmers or cars.

It was then I realised.

I was trying to rationalise with Stella using my human mind-consciousness; I was applying human standards of behaviour on her, a dog.

There is no doubt that dogs are sentient, that they have a sense of self, of the world (Professor Mancuso is exploring consciousness in plants.) And yet, her world is unimaginably different to mine.

For most humans, sight is our primary sense, followed by sound; the others, taste, feel and smell are secondary.

Our visual world, processed through the infinitude of our brains, creates a reality that is finite, amazing, beautiful, complex and all the other adjectives you might want to apply.

It is not the world of a dog.

It is not a world of scent (that is a thousand times more powerful than ours).

Stella running, was likely smelling all the animals that were in the field and all the animals, the shrews, mice, voles, as well as the rabbits, hares, deer, and pheasants that were living there and had passed through in recent days.

An amazing complexity of smells that I cannot imagine.

Complex and dramatically different.

Creating a different world.

And Stella, bred to sniff explosives or cannabis has this canine power multiplied.

Most of the time we tend not to think about the consciousness of others, let alone that of different species.

The world is my idea – Schopenhauer said, everything that is, is a mental construct. The same applies to my dog.

Using the language or tools of humans, ‘Stella! Come here!’ doesn’t work.

This morning, interestingly, applying this logic, I thought to myself, ‘Does Stella know her name?’ Sure, we call her ‘Stella’ all the time and years ago I gave-up trying to train her to recall, and yet, what does Stella mean to her?

(Dogs supposedly don’t understand language, when responding to ‘sit’ or ‘stay’ they are associating the sounds with their behaviour.)

And, over recent months, to (as I call it) develop Stella’s frontal lobes I have been training her to ‘stay’.

Today, following the ‘stay’ (she will stay for up to 10 minutes (I haven’t tested her for longer)), I called, ‘Stella’.

She didn’t move.

‘Stella!’

Nothing. (I was standing by her food bowl).

I have trained her to respond to ‘come’ which she consistently achieves running at speed to her chews. (Come didn’t work yesterday either).

And so.

My frustration at her nose-down, eyes to the ground, was pointless. I may as well have tried to argue with the wind or the sun.

Perhaps, one day, with the evolution of humanity we will ascend the Spiral (see here) and gain a better understanding not just of our own consciousness and that of other humans, but a greater sense of the world as perceived by different animals, even by plants.

Imagine.

Yoda the tortuga… God only knows what he is thinking

Why are male landowners in South Yorkshire such bastards? (Yes, this blog contains swear words. Don’t read if you are sensitive) (or a farmer).

I hesitated to use this title.

The intention had been to call them, that is, the landowners something stronger. Yes, you know the word.

So, yes, why are they such bastards?

OK.

It is Friday morning.

The end of ‘holy week’

Pesach, Easter, and Ramadan have now just finished.

The Easter Eggs are eaten, the Matzah put away and the fasting over.

I am not working.

The rain had not yet started and despite my painful back (sacroiliitis, don’t ask) I thought, ‘Run, why not?’

It was two degrees when I started, four on my return.

I live in a small village in South Yorkshire.

Given the local geography, there are not that many running routes. I am bounded by major roads and motorways that limit where I can go. And so, I have a few routes – the reverse-extended water walk, the Fletch bums dogs route, the Dadsley farm way. Most are around six or seven Km. There is the longer Stainton over the top run, which is around 18km, I reserve that for my long Sundays.

Anyway.

I also have the pygmy goat run; this is between six and seven Km although if you include the farm at the end, it is closer to eight.

It was running through the farm that I encountered the bastard.

Approaching the road there is a sign, ‘access by permission only’. Which, to my mind generally refers to cars – ‘If you want to drive here, you had better ask my permission,’ kind of thing. I jogged on.

I had run this route a few times although usually in the evenings.

Today, as, yes, holy week and a day away from work, it was the morning. I could see some cars parked. And yes, a burly guy glaring at me with disgust. He started shouting. At first, I couldn’t hear (noise cancelling headphones / Blindboy Podcast), then, ‘This is private land, you can’t be here! Get off! Stop! (I didn’t stop running) Get the fuck out of here,’ he started towards me. I sped-up and ran off. He pursued, still bawling.

I don’t know what he wanted. Perhaps to dress me down and make me go back the way I had come (it was closer to the road for me to continue running than to turn back) and, so I ran.

You can see here; I increased my speed (from not very fast to a little quicker) consequently.

Along the road I had images of his pursuit.

I imagined (me) calling the police, ‘This guy just attacked me.’ I pictured a fight. I kept running. My back stopped aching.

I then thought about my blog, and here I am.

And, yes, this has happened more than once.

There is a field beside me, a five-minute walk, it isn’t used for anything other than grass for the cows (not grazing, chopped down and fed) – a couple of years ago, Anne and I were training Stella; an old guy in tractor drove-up, ‘This is private land, you will have to leave,’ ‘We aren’t doing any harm,’ we said, ‘You dog owners and your shitting dogs, it makes the cows sterile,’ he ranted and we left.

Again, there was no gate, just an open field. (There is a gate across the field now although it has been knocked over a couple of times, likely by other disgruntled dog trainers).

Another time, I was walking with Stella, around our local park, Langold. It was a sunny day. Just me, my dog, doing no harm to anyone.

‘This is my land, you will need to leave,’ complained the farmer, another old guy on tractor. Again, I wasn’t doing any harm, hadn’t broken through anywhere, climbed a fence or gate, just wandered.

I don’t get it.

Perhaps it is because I am Scottish.

In Scotland you can go where you like.

Sure, if you break-in to a house or garden, that is not acceptable, but wandering onto empty land, not doing any harm, what is the problem?

Maybe it’s because I am not a landowner.

Maybe landowners have a hard time.

The Earl of Scarborough lives near me. He and his family own lots of land. He has the same signs although they are written in such a way as to deter me from entering altogether. Also, he has a gamekeeper, with a gun.

When I was 13 or 14, I remember a farmer catching my brother and I stealing pecans. On that occasion, he shot at us, and, yes, I think he was justified although potential death was excessive; we lived in difficult times.

Around the same time, at school, a group of friends were beaten-up by a strawberry farmer; we had taken to raiding his field during break, grabbing the juicy red sweetness from under plastic tarpaulin.

Funny.

I can’t imagine a similar situation in my world.

‘You don’t have an appointment, get the hell out of my clinic!’ I’m certain I wouldn’t resort to violence. I wouldn’t attack. And yet, these guys. Perhaps they are just bastards. Perhaps they lacked their mother’s love.

And me.

One less route to run.

It isn’t worth the hassle, the increased heart rate or anxiety.

I’ll continue to plod until I no doubt discover another field that is off my limits.

Bastards.

Blindness

A couple of weeks ago I re-read* Jose Saramago’s 1995 novel, Blindness.

In the book, first a man sitting in a car, then his doctor (an ophthalmologist), followed by a small group of people become blind.

They are quarantined in a disused psychiatric hospital, guarded by soldiers ordered to shoot on sight (ha!)** anyone trying to leave.

The hospital wards fill-up, chaos ensues.

Eventually everyone is blind. Including the soldiers.

There is more to the story. I won’t spoil it.

I remember, in the early days of Covid, when people were stockpiling, the sense that the virus would lead to a similar state; an end of days. A falling apart of the world order.

One of my first responses was to read the The Great Influenza by John Barry. To gain a better understanding of the experiences of those living through the 1917 pandemic.

Others bought lots of toilet paper.

Yesterday, I finished Bernie (Bernard) Sanders’ book, It’s OK to Be Angry About Capitalism.

What can I say.

He is a lone voice in a world of conspicuous consumption.

In a world where everyone seems to want more and more, even when that more is not very much.

It is hard to imagine that the world of potential he describes will ever happen.

Decent pay, job security, health benefits, quality education, environmental preservation.

None of these are rocket science.

Yesterday I also listened to Blindboy’s most recent Podcast, The role of Art in the Housing crisis.

It is longer than his usual.

The first half is a sardonic interaction/analysis of Chat GPT, the second a response to the Irish housing crisis, based on the paintings The Eviction by Daniel Macdonald and Visual Artist, Spicebag.

Bernie’s aspiration is that the masses – those who are not the one per cent will decide to vote in their own interests and elect someone to power (UK or US – we have a similar situation) who will make the necessary changes.

At the very least, helping the planet, buying us some time.

I’m not sure.

I appreciate it is not productive to determine we are doomed, that the mega-rich and mega-companies will not give-up their positions, that the anti-democratic situation accelerated by digital and social media will end any time soon; I don’t see any alternatives.

I see Netflix or Disney forcing us into little boxes, squeezing us into TV watching dolts (Season 9, Episode 23), where we are unable to band together to work out alternatives to the existing world order. We are sniffing the digital glue.

Bernie, what can we do?

Saramago’s book ends optimistically. Yes, our own pandemic is over, the world is normalising, the toilet-roll necessity was overkill, and yet, the scare that is the accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere?

Many people take the approach that either, the government will sort things out or technology will arrive with a solution.

Again, I don’t see it.

Watching David Attenborough’s recent series, Wild Isles, I sense that he sees the writing on the wall too. He sees the disappearance of the animals big and small. It’s not that he has failed, it is that he came too late to the table, he started talking about the disaster past the tipping point.

What now?

Easy to write yourself into a box.

Easy to write yourself blind.

Just close your eyes and never open them.

For the triumph of evil, all it takes is …

What do you think?

*I say re-read as I have read it before although I couldn’t remember anything about it. Must have been during one of my lost-years.

**Book is filled with puns and double-entendres

Masking / existential cover-up (Chris Packham & the autistic spectrum)

Remember the 1994 film, The Mask, starring Jim Carrey?

It was one of those Hollywood blockbusters that tried to examine something serious in a slapstick way.

Mask.

We all wear them.

Last night, I watched Chris Packham’s recent double documentary about autism, Inside Our Autistic Minds.

In the first episode he told Flo’s story; a young woman who, in her spare time is an improvisational comedian.

She was diagnosed with autism later in life, as, is more common for women and she masked.

I had not heard of this term.

Interestingly, my 16-year-old daughter knew all about it.

Masking describes a behaviour where the affected person recognises that their behaviour is not like that of others and thus copies or mimics to blend-in, to not appear an oddity.

Essentially, you have people who mask, who appear like everyone else and those who don’t, who are seen as the odd-balls, outsiders, geeks, or freaks.

Some of this becomes confusing when autism is combined with learning disability.

The documentary discussed, Murray, son of former Radio two DJ Ken Bruce.

He also has autism and cannot speak. (An ironic twist of fate when your dad is a radio talker). He is non-verbal or, as the programme described, non-talking. There is a difference although I wasn’t clear what. Chris described the reality that many people who have autism who are unable to talk also have severe learning disabilities. Murray has normal intelligence as articulated by some emails he sent to Chris and the part he played in creating a short film about his life.

It is confusing.

I also found it interesting that there was no mention of neurotypical or neurodivergence. I had thought these were common terms in the world of autism; perhaps not.

Blindboy talks about his autism frequently on his podcast.

I suspect some of the complexity arises from the nature of autism in that it is not an absolute, as it exists on a spectrum, there are those who have aspects of the disorder and those who have more than others, traits, they are called and frequently in conversation, people (I’d always considered neurotypical, although perhaps not) would say, ‘I’m a bit like that,’ as if, because of a certain behaviour they could lay claim to a component of the diagnosis.

I was thinking this last night when I reflected to my recent, ‘I’m just a quiet guy’ blog.

I wrote about my undulating personality. Where, depending on the circumstance I can be outgoing and extraverted and at other times the silent guy. Two different people in one existence. Like a Transformer (the American cartoon type).

I don’t want to return to an analysis of myself as I have said enough.

I remember years ago contemplating this and comparing it to something out of Kabbalah.

The notion being, that he (or she) who is at one with the understanding of the mystic nature of life (the part in between heaven and hell or mind and body), the enlightened individual, is able to be their true selves, such that they behave and appear in a certain way regardless of circumstance; their mood, behaviour, appearance, opinion or thoughts are constant, stable.

For such a person, their ego is of adequate robustness to allow them to demonstrate their weaknesses and strengths as one, with little variation.

The corollary being, me, with my quiet guy and outgoing guy am far-away from this.

And so too the person with autism who exists in a world that is set to an different rhythm, that processes information, sights and sounds in ways that vary from the majority.

It is hard to say.

You see, we are all individuals, unique unto ourselves.

I was caught by Chris using an old dementia adage about autism, ‘when you have met one person with autism, you have met one person with autism’ – this is often used for those living with dementia.

We, that is, society or people, want to clump others together into handy groups that allow us to categorise or process – lefties, Tories, golfers, teachers, tailors, football supporters, whatever, as if, the collective term removes the individuality; this is not reality although we can’t help ourselves.

It is one of those human traits that are hard to avoid.

And so, autism. Neurodivergence. Variation. Oddness. Mad to be Normal (RD Laing). All exist on the same wavelength of what it is to be human. To be human and not be odd is, well, odd. We are all vulnerable. We are all primates, we like our bananas and our beds and playthings, we are primitive and sophisticated, we are hairy and naked. Me, you, everybody.

Greed is good & striking doctors.

Two Distant Strangers

Last night I watched the short film, Two Distant Strangers.

The plot involves Carter James a graphic designer, a policeman, Merk and Carter’s dog Jeter. The move begins with Carter waking next to a sleeping Perri, a woman he met the night before.

It is showing on Netflix as part Black Lives Matter, examining the experiences of Black Americans in modern America.

I am no good at reviewing books and films.

My suggestion is that if you subscribe to Netflix, and have a free half hour, watch.

It is a time-loop narrative of racial abuse.

It conveys what it is to be trapped by circumstance, by race, class, and colour.

It is a critique of modern America.

If you read this morning’s blog, you will know that I am in the middle of Bernie Sander’s It’s OK to Be Angry About Capitalism.

Bernie discusses all the inequalities within the American political, governmental, social and health systems.

It sounds awful.

Yes, I know the facts and have a notion of the statistics. The numbers of poor men and women of colour in America murdered, the numbers locked-up in prison, barred from education and healthcare. It is horrendous.

I balk at the divisions between rich and poor in the UK.

The happy clappers gadding about in red jackets, chasing foxes or other endangered wildlife and the man or woman on the street.

Sanders, in his books talks about the uber-rich. The one percent of the one percent. Those who don’t stand on the street or find themselves in prison or forced to calculate how little insulin they can use without falling into ketoacidosis.

The first sequences of the movie are awful. Upsetting. Distressing to watch. When the inevitability and futility dawn, you are taken to another level of grim.

I think of the American arguing with the shop girl in Reykjavik a few weeks ago. He was trying to get her to reduce the cost of a woolly hat. I think of the American woman so beautifully described by Blindboy on the Dublin coach (here).

Me, as I said last week, I am a quiet guy.

I just want people to get along.

I don’t like shouting or noise or disturbance.

I don’t like fuss.

I’d sooner stand on the periphery than occupy the central stage.

How does this reflection relate to the film?

I want to call-out my privilege.

And yet, my life hasn’t been all that easy or straightforward.

I think of Victor Frankl.

He described suffering as like a gas, filling the space available.

There are no absolutes in pain or fear; each of us experiences life on our own terms, in our own heads, at our own pace. There is no go o’er.

I struggle to write about race or class as I find myself unsure as to my own position. I hate the notion that I might be perceived as classist or racist or narcissist. I just want some peace and quiet. And who decides? Who determines? Does it matter?

We live, we die, in between is a confusion.

Diseases of despair – an Easter ramble.

Obesity is easy.

You are sad, empty, and you eat.

(Remember Atwood’s Edible Woman?)

You consume to fill the void.

You eat more than you should.

I remember as a little boy walking in town,

commenting to my mum;

She’s so fat

I said,

Or words to that effect

I think she might have been begging.

How can she be fat when she has no money?

I asked.

You can be fat eating jam sandwiches, mum replied.

Jam, being associated in my mind as an anti-luxury.

Although,

for some,

Preserved fruit can be a treat.

Obesity leads to diabetes and raised blood pressure and premature heart disease and arthritis and frailty and falls. You die young. Poverty kills. Insecurity kills. Anxiety and uncertainty raise your cortisol and throws your physiology out of kilter.

Smoking is another. Disease of despair. Let’s call it nicotine addiction.

To ease an individual’s feelings of hopelessness

They seek a fix.

A cigarette.

Nicotine straight to the brain.

As with alcohol and drugs, intravenous or prescription.

A person can spiral.

Bernie, in his recent book (It’s OK to Be Angry About Capitalism) describes the situation of a person not having enough money to afford a trip to the doctor; they become so very ill they present as an emergency – perhaps they are diabetic and insulin rationing (in the UK, some young people ration insulin to stay thin), Americans do this because the drug cost is prohibitive.

Banting, Best and their pancreatectomised dogs would not approve.

And the hospitalisation bill so far beyond a person’s ability to pay that they file for bankruptcy or take a loan and fall into a spiral of compound interest.

Debt which prevents the person with diabetes from obtaining the insulin that led to the acidosis that started the spiral. Despair.

It is Passover.

I think of Chad Gadya. (חד גדיא, See below).

In the UK we have despair.

The poor get poorer and the rich, well, we know what happens to them.

I suspect I would despair if I had to wait in line at a food bank.

Yesterday, in a last-minute attempt to acquire Easter Eggs I visited several local shops.

Gone. There wasn’t an egg left in any of the stores (one petrol station had a few dented Lindt rabbits (white-chocolate)).

I remember last year, there were lots left over.

I gather the cost of cocoa is soaring. What’s the harm in stockpiling?

I experienced a momentary despair.

How gauche.

How much a demonstration of the artifice of modern life.

And this despair nothing compared to the end of the rope.

The final pay check before there is not enough to meet the costs of the rent and food and healthcare (if you are an American in America).

It seems despair is worse in the USA than the UK as we have, albeit a very diminished social safety net (society? Thatcher’s fumes.) Not as robust as that in the Nordic Countries, yet still extant – if all else fails, you can always turn up at hospital and tell them you have chest pain; that won’t get you far in America. The land of the free.

And when I reflect on my life experiences, I realise how incredibly fortunate I am, for despair isn’t something I know.

I, for the most, have comfort. Even when, this winter, in environmental and economic solidarity, the house was 14 degrees and below.

Despair, desperado.

Makes me think of the song by the Eagles.

I am tired.

I will rest.

What a luxury.

Chad gadya. Chad gadya. (Each verse sung, faster and faster, each reptition a competion with siblings) (Listen here).

That Father bought for two zuzim, Chad gadya. Chad gadya.

Then came a cat and ate the goat, That Father bought for two zuzim, Chad gadya. Chad gadya.

Then came a dog and bit the cat, that ate the goat, That Father bought for two zuzim, Chad gadya. Chad gadya.

Then came a stick and beat the dog, that bit the cat, that ate the goat, That Father bought for two zuzim, Chad gadya. Chad gadya.

Then came fire and burnt the stick, that beat the dog, that bit the cat, that ate the goat, That Father bought for two zuzim, Chad gadya. Chad gadya.

Then came water and quenched the fire, that burnt the stick, that beat the dog, that bit the cat, that ate the goat, That Father bought for two zuzim, Chad gadya. Chad gadya.

Then came the ox and drank the water, that quenched the fire, that burnt the stick, that beat the dog, that bit the cat, that ate the goat, That Father bought for two zuzim, Chad gadya. Chad gadya.

Then came the butcher and slaughtered the ox, that drank the water, that quenched the fire, that burnt the stick, that beat the dog, that bit the cat, that ate the goat, That Father bought for two zuzim, Chad gadya. Chad gadya.

Then came the Angel of Death and killed the butcher, that slaughtered the ox, that drank the water, that quenched the fire, that burnt the stick, that beat the dog, that bit the cat, that ate the goat, That Father bought for two zuzim, Chad gadya. Chad gadya.

Then came the Holy One, Blessed be He and slew the the Angel of Death, that killed the butcher, that slaughtered the ox, that drank the water, that quenched the fire, that burnt the stick, that beat the dog, that bit the cat, that ate the goat, That Father bought for two zuzim, Chad gadya. Chad gadya.

I’m just a quiet guy.

I remember, around ten years ago, when I completed my first Myers Briggs. This, for those of you who are unfamiliar, is a personality assessment created by a mother and daughter duo in the United States in the 1920’s.

I won’t go into the details of whether the questionnaire is valid or the Jungian or other roots of the theory, nevertheless, for some, the ability to understand themselves and others through a lens of introversion/extraversion and other personality traits is enlightening.

I will not explain the theory here – it is all in previous blogs; see here.

Anyway.

On this occasion and at subsequent times the analysis describes me as an introvert. Sometimes called intravert. Word doesn’t like spelling of the former, you can choose.

In the world of Myers-Briggs (usually called Myers-Briggs Type Indicators or MBTI), Introversion although implying in the colloquial sense, a quiet guy, also explains the ways in which a person is energised – where they draw their strength, with, the theory being that introverts gain succour from within, from quiet, lone time, reflection, silence and inner-thought and extraverts (extroverts) are the opposite, getting their energy from outside, from interaction with others, from noise, happenings, hustle and bustle.

So, me, I am an I, Intro or intra.

I need quietness to recharge.

I enjoy solitary pursuits.

It is 9am on Good Friday and I have already been for a 1500m swim at Manvers Lake. The time, breaking the waves, staring down into the green, sun shattered depths, rejuvenates me, it allows my thoughts to disentangle; it frees me from anxiety, from too much self-talk or, in the language of Mindfulness, mind-wandering. Afterwards I can focus. All is clear. Tranquillity reigns. A couple of hours with a book, a crossword, on my bike or running does the same.

That is me. Quiet time.

And, yes, for extraverts, the opposite.

For some of these activities, individuals who gain their energy from socialising with others would consider punishment. They need the engagement, gregariousness, society, noise of others to sustain them.

Each to his own, I say.

And it is this split that is interesting.

I am both intraverted from a MBTI perspective and introverted with respect to my personality.

A couple of weeks ago I spend five days in Iceland. Alone. Away from my family (and dogs) and, was fine. I didn’t chit-chat and barely interacted with anyone beyond the occasional, ‘Can I have some more herring?’

I know there are readers who would consider a week in Iceland, by themselves, highly disagreeable.

There you go.

And the point?

Well, I recall, after my first MBTI outcome, those in my group (it was an NHS leadership development programme) couldn’t believe I was an ‘I’ (Intra, for short).

‘And, the point, Rod?’ You ask.

Well, a funny thing is that when I am in groups, particularly ones that address topics that are close to my heart, perhaps to do with patient care, dementia, delirium, improvement, and innovation, all the stuff I have been writing about for the past years, I flip from being the quiet guy to being unable to shut up.

I can talk and talk.

Another situation where I talk, and talk, is if I am running a meeting and no one else is speaking; I struggle with the silence and usually fill-in.

I don’t know where the words come from, they are just there and I go on and, on.

Funny stuff for an ‘I’.

Some people only know me in this mode. Mostly through work.

They see me as the ‘E’ – extravert, hyper-social, talkative chap.

As a little boy, my mum used to say I was ‘silent but deadly.’

It is a dichotomy.

Recently, during an interview I was silent (I was on the panel); people (work colleagues) were wondering what was wrong. I was even texted to check ‘Are you OK Dr Kersh?’

And yesterday, in conversation, I expressed my preferences (MBTI shows preferences, not absolutes) and was again dismissed, ‘You! A quiet guy? Ha!’

There is theory to explain this.

The MBTI notion is that because of another component of my personality –I am what is called ‘feeling’ rather than ‘thinking’ – I operate at this level, it is my currency, it is what I value most in human interaction (I will say, ‘I am not sure how I feel about that,’ just as someone else might say, ‘I don’t know what I think,’ you see the difference? Some of this is the nuance of dialogue, there is however something deeper.)

Anyway. Me, being an ‘F’ in situations of the silence (that makes most people (although less the thinkers than the feelers) uncomfortable, my discomfort is so great that I effectively sacrifice my quietness to create a more engaging or supportive atmosphere.

If you want to test this, watch me at the next meeting I chair, if you are there and no one else is talking.

(Again, this is preference, not absolute, I can shut up when necessary).

The consequence of all this chatter is that I find myself spun-out after a few such meetings; needing a rest.

The point?

Well, what you see and what you get are not necessarily the same thing. We think we know people; we understand their behaviours or motivations and we can be misled.

We exist in the silent pits of our mind. In the deep, dark space that is our brain, the squidgy neurochemical interface; no one really knows what is going on.

And, trust me, I am a quiet guy.

If you enjoyed this or any of my other blogs, please give me a thumbs-up and a share. Thanks.

The art (Tao) of doctoring without doctoring

There is a scene near the beginning of Enter the Dragon where Bruce Lee, when asked as to his style of fighting responds, ‘the style of fighting without fighting.’ (see here).

He tricks that South African toughie into boarding a rowing boat tethered behind them as they travel to Han’s Island.

The art of doing without doing.

Non-doing.

Very Zen.

You might say.

One of the forms of doctoring I practice is just this, it is, you could say, doctoring without doctoring.

Some might argue, ‘That is doctoring,’ let’s see.

Yesterday, I spoke with one of my patients.

His liver tests had become abnormal a few months ago.

I explained to him my suspicion that the abnormality was related to liver (hepatic) congestion caused by his fluid retention (heart failure) and, if we treat the fluid, his liver should recover.

I also have him the option of a trip to the hospital for an ultrasound. It could be gallstones, infection, or cancer.

He opted for the more conservative approach. Waiting and watching.

Fast forward and his heart failure has improved as have his liver tests.

We talked yesterday and he was pleased with the situation.

An ultrasound is considered within the gamut of clinical investigations, ‘non-invasive’ (you don’t require the inner cavities of your body to be prodded or visualised), it is also relatively cheap, as compared to a CT or MRI scan. The argument usually being (if you are the doctor), ‘Why not?’

After all, this approach accepts the principle of primum non-nocere, first do no harm.

And yet, arranging an ultrasound or any other test, is a form of action, it is a doing and with this doing comes consequences, for example the patient’s anxious waiting for the appointment, the six am out of bed wait for the hospital transport (arrives at 10), the waiting in the hospital, the uncertainty, lift home and waiting for result; there are potential the unintended outcomes of scan reports that add to uncertainty, ‘The liver’s heterogenous appearance could relate to heart failure or could be minor metastases,’ and so, the ultrasound is followed by a CT and if still uncertain a biopsy and so on.

There are some interesting principles here:

Patient preference and autonomy – a patient should be allowed, when provided with the information in a form understandable to them, make an informed decision about what they want for their body. It is, after all, their body. The old concept of ‘doctor knows best’ is becoming passé with a greater realisation that although the doctor might be the expert in the blood test, the patient is the expert in the patient. As the power-balance shifts, we learn that many patients prefer waiting and watching, they are inherently less gung-ho than clinicians.
Unintended consequences – it is always easy of a doctor to bamboozle a patient with science, using jargon and long sentences to scare the bejesus out of them to get what they want, for example, even though the risk of cancer is equivalent, if you use words that carry threatening connotations, you can get people to do anything, ‘If you don’t agree to the ultrasound, you might die, cancer might be missed, all hell will break loose.’ I find this phrasing particularly common when doctors are working with older people, they are, it seems, easy to scare. (And the scan is uncertain, next a CT, then biopsy, then…)
Sense of urgency – in healthcare there are some time-critical events, for example, if you have a stroke, it is essential that you receive a scan and potential treatment as quickly as possible – within hours, the same applies to heart attacks. The longer the delay the more brain or heart dies and the greater the likelihood of death or disability.

You can’t mess-around during cardiac arrests and many cancers require prompt treatment to reduce the likelihood of spread.

All this haste creates a pressure that damages intelligence (going back to the original almondemotion – Amygdala, primitive fear response) – when we are stressed, ‘Four hours to admit the patient,’ we don’t necessarily make the best decisions. If the procedure is routine and well-rehearsed, for example, the cardiac arrest, muscle memory takes over and there is capacity to work out what is happening, if not, it is a mess (stramash).

Not all areas of medicine require this urgency – sometimes a little bit of time and space is needed; in the support of people living with dementia, for example in a crisis, providing time and space can lead to a spontaneous resolution of what might seem urgent (leave Colin for now, we can offer him the medicine/treatment/injection later vs ‘intramuscular Lorazepam’.)

If I pressurise my patient with time-critical decisions, ‘You need to have the scan now!’ they are less likely to weigh what matters to them, the pros and cons and comply.

4. Defensive practice – doctors fear missing something awful. Missing cancer or a pulmonary embolism or heart attack are amongst our most deeply rooted fears. And so, we say to ourselves, ‘I might not sleep tonight if my patient doesn’t have scan/test x, y, or z, let me use my professional muscle to get them to have it’ (this sometimes entails manipulating the truth, inventing falsely elevated temperatures or symptoms to get the radiographer, or receiving doctor to take-over responsibility).

Defensive practice is a scourge of modern medicine and really a misunderstanding of causality, of the process of events, of what patients and regulators want.

To say, ‘I don’t know what is wrong,’ is better than inventing a possible rare condition and passing the buck.

Doctors can imagine all sorts of rare conditions, ignoring the common things are common maxim for, ‘it could be Von-Heffeltopfer’s disease!’ Best send you to hospital.

I doctored without doctoring, or rather, I doctored. This is shared decision making, working in collaboration with the patient to determine the best outcome.

And, just as in Enter the Dragon, although Bruce Lee in not fighting, was playing a joke on the South African, he was exemplifying the essence of his art. Yes, punch if a punch is required, if you punch when a punch is not needed, you risk hurting yourself, you risk escalation, wating energy or causing unnecessary harm.

When in doubt, act, goes the saying.

Sometimes acting is waiting.

Sometimes acting is nothing at all.

Have a good day.

How much does a banana cost? (And other considerations of imperialism and inhospitable glaciers)

My trip to the Southern Glacier, Sólheimajökulll was cancelled last minute.

Frustrating.

That’s the way of the world. Things don’t always play-out as we would like.

So, Iceland, what I have I learned?

My brother keeps telling me that they ‘hate Israel.’

Strictly Jordanian dates only.

My reply had been that lots of countries hate Israel.

He was keen for me to find-out the reason for the antipathy.

I haven’t asked anyone.

‘Hey, Olaf, why do you guys hate Israel?’

‘Eh?’

I suspect some of this has to do with Lutheranism.

I understand, mostly by inference and by standing outside austere churches and cathedrals that this is the major Christian denomination on the Island.

Martin Luther was the man who posted his writs at Worms, who rallied against the flouncery of Catholicism with its purchases of favours and indulgences.

Better to maintain a direct connection with God, than navigate priests, their Latinate rituals, and ceremonies.

Well, I perceive, and please don’t let this offend you if you are a Lutheran and you know more about these things than me, that this leads to a form of self-righteousness.*

Purity of purpose and spirit.

Akin to the way in which Icelanders have adopted renewable energy.

They have tapped into the geothermals to generate electricity, water and heating and, where that is not available, hydroelectric.

They drive electric cars.

I haven’t seen any Priuses although lots of Teslas, Hyundais and Kias.

Their cars move through the streets with a strumming of winter tyres, equipped with metal spikes to manage the ice and snow (no slippy, slidy early mornings for them).

Yesterday I ran past the central Reykjavik cemetery.

Dull stones, names etched for remembrance.

No angels.

OK.

I’m not trying to run-down the population.

I have not met anyone beyond casual shop, hotel, and restaurant interactions.

Although when you live in an area of purity (the tap water tastes amazing – it is filtered through volcanic rock) you, I suspect anticipate this of others.

(This makes the American tourists, sorry for more generalisation and offence, extra loud and intrusive).

And with this approach the anticipation of fairness, equality, and flatness of hierarchy (the gap between the rich and poor is less here than the US, UK or yes, Israel, although it is still significant – the top 5% of people own 50% of the island).

And why not fairness towards the Palestinians?

And there is the problem.

I suspect.

And, who knows, perhaps they love Israel here.

This is my commentary on my brother’s recent Googling.

Or maybe it is the Jews.

Everyone hates a Jew.

Do they not?

Ironically, I didn’t begin this blog with an expose of my biases and prejudices.

I wanted to talk about Imperialism.

The Icelanders have not been colonialists – like the English, French, Spanish and Americans.

(Leif Erikson’s attempt to settle North America didn’t last).

They have scratched-out an existence on the barren soil, contending with winters, volcanoes, and all sorts.

And what is the point?

Well, everything is expensive.

Perhaps double the price of food, drink, and clothing than the UK.

So?

It’s an island; they import everything.

Yes, OK. So too is the UK.

Admittedly this is a remote island with a tiny population. 370,000 or thereabouts.

That is a factor.

Another I suspect, going back to the start of the blog and the Israel – Palestine conflict.

The island in its long history has been colonised or ruled by Denmark and Norway. It gained independence only in 1944 (taking advantage of the war and the German occupation).

It has therefore a history of occupation, of outside control, like Scotland, Ireland, or India.

And, like all previously oppressed people it has a fierce sense of independence and a preference to avoid profiteering from the labour of others (the colonised).

All this combining perhaps, (with Luther) to what you see today.

It is a country built of necessity of grit and determination.

Sure, the bananas are expensive.

So what?

Everything is expensive.

If you take an approach that precludes an exploitation of others.

What is the cost of a banana?

I’ll tell you.

OK, I won’t. You can read How bad are bananas? (Mike Berners-Lee).

And, to return to Israel.

If there has ever been a colonised country it is the Holy land.

The list of occupiers is long.

Assyrians, Babylonians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Crusaders, Ottomans, British…

And the timeline of those occupations, depending on your historical view goes back thousands of years.

This likely relates to the independent attitude of Israel and the Israelis.

Combining the cost of bananas with imperialism and Jewish autonomy.

All before breakfast and, on holiday.

You have my apologies.

Good day.

xxx

What did I do with my cancelled day?

I ran, swam, and walked.

Better to keep moving.

Avoid standing still.

Or you might freeze.

xxx

*Just so as to be clear and, to represent my person-centred credentials; when I refer to groups, I am alluding to the notion of the people rather than the people. Once you have met one Icelander, Scot, Jew, so the saying goes, you have met once Icelander… People are distinct from person. We is not me although you are you.

Heightened index of distractibility & surviving the Nazis.

Now, a shift to something different.

When I was in my early 20’s I was very interested in the writer, Colin Wilson.

He is the former Peterborough man who after leaving school at 16, went to work in a chemical factory then travelled down to London in the early 1950’s. This followed with him writing a classic of the early Angry Young Men generation, The Outsider. Different from Camus’ L’Étranger, although with parallel themes.

This was a work investigating the place of outsiders in art and literature. He wrote it whilst sleeping in a tent on Hampstead Heath, spending his days in the British Library.

A similar activity in 2023 would get you locked-up or sectioned.

I was reading Oliver Burkeman’s book, Four Thousand Weeks, last night and came across a quote by the French Philosopher, Henri Bergson.

It took me back to a moment when, sitting in the Student’s Union in Dundee with my Phil, in conversation, we touched on the meaninglessness of life. When I say touch, it was more of a glance. A passing brush with the notion that proved so very terrifying we immediately changed the subject (wandering off to Waterstones, Virgin, or up Law Hill).

The notion that the aspiration or the thought is more valuable than the thing is steeped in the roots of Stoic Philosophy.

The obstacle is the way.

Apologies for the nihilistic bent of this blog.

I don’t think it is Burkeman’s intention.

Interestingly, in a different vein, he mentioned the effect of intergenerational trauma on him and his family.

They are obsessive planners.

They would drive me crazy. (The feelings would almost certainly be mutual).

Bergman claims that much of this followed his grandmother’s experiences of escaping Nazi Germany just after Kristallnacht. Consequent upon the family’s meticulous planning, they escaped in time. (He describes them popping champagne bottles on the boat – suspect his family were not of my lumpen origins). This has been passed down through the years as a religious observance of the rules of forward planning.

Like my notion of the Anxious Jew.

The laid-back Jews were extracted from the gene-pool by Amalekites, Assyrians, Babylonians, Romans, Lithuanians…

He covers this too (in a roundabout way) – discussing the notion of focus and distractibility.

I am very distractible.

If I am to read a book in public I almost aways require silence or headphones/earbuds. Most recently I have taken to playing brown noise.

I remember as a child, my mum could read a book with lots going on. My brother Lloyd is the same. Not I.

OK, we are different.

And yet, my distractibility whilst mostly frustrating is a useful tool for survival. I will sense the pounding of the horses’ hooves before it is too late. Others will be someplace else, in their heads, that is.

Back to human all too human.

It is hard to escape.

It’s a palaver.

xxx

Apologies for not describing my American/Eurasian tectonic snorkel from yesterday (dry-suits at 2 degrees C) – in the clearest water. Visibility is reckoned at 100m (I can’t see that far out of water!). Floating is like moving through liquid glass. A fish (trout? Char?) passed beneath me; sunlight shattered on volcanic boulders. It was very cold. My socks stayed dry.

To the glacier this morning.

Update…

Tour cancelled. Weather apparently too severe for tourists to visit.

Gutted.

The only trip I had really wanted to do during this holiday was to the glacier.

Off to the swimming pool.

Iceland, Israel and four Dorits

This will be an unusual one.

I don’t intend to convey a message or reveal a truth, merely to explain where and why I am. And yes, four Dorits.

It began during Covid. Maybe 2020.

I had an inkling to visit my brother who lives in Israel.

At the time, Israel was far ahead of the UK in its Covid programme (which country wasn’t?), and I thought I could use my citizenship to gain entry. Not for any reasons beyond seeing my family.

Given regulations at the time, I knew I wouldn’t gain entry with my UK passport, and so, I applied to the Israeli Embassy to renew my Israeli one; last used in 90’s.

The reply came that as so much time had passed since my last visit, I would need to attend the Embassy in London with a valid plane ticket.

The logistical complexity (book and take annual leave, purchase ticket, and arrange trip to London) proved too much, and I called-off the trip.

Fast-forward to this February and I again had itchy feet for the Holy Land; I have only seen my brother for one day in the past five years.

I learned that I no longer required a plane ticket, just to present myself at the embassy.

I booked a slot, and the visit was arranged.

Why the hassle of getting an Israeli passport when I could fly using my British one? Well, Israel has a law that if you have an Israeli passport, you need to use it to enter and exit the country.

There must be a reason for this, perhaps related to security or demographics, I don’t know. Anyway, previously when I had visited, I was in and out with my UK passport. I knew I was bending the rules, yet I managed to outmanoeuvre security and get in and out without too much delay.

As I had flagged myself to the embassy only a few months before, I was wary of this strategy and thought I should do it properly.

And so, my visit was planned. A trip to London pending.

I called the embassy to check logistics.

‘How long will I be in the embassy?’ (Wanting to fit-in a trip to Foyles).

‘That is difficult to say.’

‘Will I get my passport at the time?’

‘It can take up to five days.’

‘No quicker?’

‘That depends.’

‘On what?’

‘Matters beyond my control.’

‘Is there anything I can do to speed the process?’

‘That depends.’

‘On what?’

… You can guess what came next.

My appointment was only two days before my flight (I, king of the last minutes saw a risk that I might not have a passport and might not be able to travel.)

‘Sorry, I don’t think I will make it,’ I told my brother.

And so, I cast my net (I still had 5 days leave ahead)

And yes, Iceland.

Here I am.

Reykjavik hotel. Scheduled for a snorkelling session in a few hours. (Yes, snorkel, I’ll report the story if I survive).

And the Dorits?

Well.

In my life I have encountered four Dorits.

There is Dickens’ Little Dorit. I haven’t read the book and couldn’t manage the dramatization.

Then there is Dorit Rabinyan, the Israeli Novelist. I have mentioned her before. She set one of her books in Magdiel, a small village outside Hod Hasharon and, the location of my middle school, Tali.

The third Dorit was a girl in my class at school.

I can’t remember her surname.

She was one of those girls, I remember, tall for her age. Thick glasses, unwashed hair and acne.

I recall her distress at not scoring 100% in Maths.

She tolerated me.

The final Dorit was reached via an investigation of Iceland.

Dorit Moussaieff is married to Iceland’s former President, Ragnar Grimsson.

Born in Jerusalem of Bukharin descent she moved to London as a girl and joined in her family’s jewellery design business before relocating North.

Dorit’s entry in Wikipedia mentioned her 2006 encounter with Israeli border police.

At the time, she was leaving Israel using her British passport and was stopped at the border.

An international incident followed.

And that could have been me.

Perhaps they tightened the regulations. (Possible).

Perhaps she was talking loudly in Hebrew. (Probable).

Who knows.

Four Dorits across England, Israel, and Iceland.

Last night, I dreamed of a trip to Herzliya beach, down from Sidni Ali, with my childhood friend Addy; now Elor. We discussed Bukhara.

He introduced me to Bukharans and their famous lisp.

As a child he was privy to all sorts of arcana.

xxx

I survived the swim.

Mindful

I have been agitated.

Mind full of itchy & scratchy

Like the hives that appear after nettles.

I once whipped my back with nettles.

To relieve the pain of strain from climbing a wall at CentreParks.

We travelled with Wendy, and I remember competing with little children until muscle shred and spasm stopped me.

It was the year I worked in Rotherham as a registrar.

The year I discovered rectal diclofenac.

I remember the nightshifts, unable to sit or lie (the pain), walking the wards until dawn.

I remember layers of ice coating the BOC oxygen supply.

Like the water hydrant I saw last night.

Little did I know that this would lead to an exclusion on my income protection (no early retirement with a musculoskeletal injury for me).

The aggravation,

Has, I think stemmed from my lone-ness.

I am holidaying in Iceland.

A solo trip, the first since my 20’s.

Back then, energised by adventure I would strike-up conversations, embark on adventures – Pere Lachaise, Marseille, Luxor and the Charles Bridge. The domestication of my 50’s has kept me still. It has been me and my family, the way I like it.

And now, here I am.

Me and an island of strangers.

A hodgepodge of Icelanders, English, Americans and Chinese.

Yesterday, a Spanish couple on the airport transfer talked non-stop for 45 minutes.

I find in my isolation a heightened sensitivity to sound and the conversation of others.

Last night, shortly after arriving, I jogged around Reykjavik. (March & light until 9).

Me, the road, ice, dead grass and some scattering geese.

I think of all the ways our minds sabotage us.

Here, I write in the hotel reception, brown noise playing through noise-cancelling earbuds.

You see, too much alone time and I become lonely; other people and I am overwhelmed. A social catch-22.

I reflect on something I read recently.

‘How will I know if they keep Kosher?’

‘Don’t worry, Orthodox Jews are like Vegans, they will let you know.’

At breakfast, the chef rushed to the front desk; a girl with allergies had arrived.

‘No milk.’

I don’t know if lactose intolerant or properly allergic.

‘I can eat that and that and that,’ she pointed.

By the time I had finished my cinnamon swirl, I knew too much about the girl’s intestines.

At times like these, I think of mindfulness and mental health.

I recall square (box) breathing.

This, when you inhale for four seconds, hold for four, out for four and hold for a final four seconds. Sixteen seconds of mindful attention to the breath. Keep doing this and your internal dialogue will start to dissipate.

Like those images of dreams in Inception.

We often forget about the maintenance of mental health until it is too late.

You see, our psyches are like muscles. They strengthen with practice, repetition, and training.

Rely too heavily on drink, drugs or thrill-seeking and you will be let down; your mind will not sustain a health body.

Work the spirit! (Not the boozy variety.)

And, how?

Invest in yourself.

‘Me time’ it’s called.

Doing things that are for you and no one else.

For me, my time is reading and running and swimming and blogging and listening to podcasts.

I have a heck of a lot of me.

How much me depends on you and your needs.

For some this would be too much aloneness.

Some, those chatterers amongst you require more dialogue, discourse, for me, silence is it.

There is giving too.

The gift of giving.

It is better to give than receive, so said Jesus.

If you let me give you the substantial, this will complete me.

‘I don’t need/want your…’

Think about it.

And love and time with others, and sleep and good food.

Avoid too much refined sugar.

A little honey, OK.

A guide to life, as if I know what I am doing. As if.

I began with the Mindfulness.

This is focusing and avoiding the wandering.

Mind-wandering.

Is what it is to be human.

It is also detrimental to our psychological health.

Our dreams are mind wandering.

They take us on an unconscious journey of healing.

And where would we be without?

I’ll end here, there is too much to do.

What was it you said?

Oh, I forgot you already told me that…

Imagine, always remembering.

We call this eidetic.

Events, places, and times, frozen by indelible recall.

Every phrase, gesture, and nuance locked in.

Imagine. Always, always, forever.

And then, you have

For this is the ultimate robot device.

Computers, just like elephants never forget.

Although silicone isn’t of herbal value,

It is fixed in time and space.

And, it is the forgetting that makes us human.

It is the gaps that we fill with creativity,

Novelty

That makes us, us.

The person out of view,

Our shaded blind-spots.

It is the leaps of imagination,

The ersatz steps, the staccato shuffle that bears the stamp of humanity.

I am, because I fill-in the gaps between then, and now and tomorrow.

Our illogicality, our irrepressible need to join the dots.

Here I am, and tomorrow who knows?

The last lecture

I remember the book,

Randy Pausch.

The Last Lecture.

He was an American Computer Scientist.

the book

discussed his final years,

and his parting lecture with students

before he died from pancreatic cancer, age 47,

Fortunately,

The circumstances of my last lecture are not so bad.

I just fell-out,

grew apart.

A flaky relationship.

Over the years, I have been teaching medical students.

It is central to the role of being a doctor.

You treat and care and you teach.

Some might focus on the data or study the numbers.

That’s not me.

This lecture, I have been giving since 2004. That is, almost 20 years of students. The majority of whom have now progressed to becoming doctors, consultants, GPs, and academics.

Most will not remember even a scintilla of my lecture.

The neural connectome will have died before they leave their seats.

Poof. Lost in a race to memorise facts and figures, to cram adequate information to pass the next test or assessment.

Over the years the students have changed.

Yes, I have changed too, although they more than I.

At the beginning, there were no computers.

Now, most sit looking not at me, instead at their laptops.

(I am a visual thinker and lecturer – I rely on pictures rather than words).

I don’t know what they see; it is perhaps the PowerPoint I am projecting on the wall, it might be Wordle or the Guardian Crossword (unlikely, aren’t they Boomer pastimes?). They might be Googling ‘hospitalisation’ or one of my other catchphrases although most of what I teach is not very sophisticated.

On Monday I began with the tale of Hillel the Elder, who, to paraphrase, sometime around the year 1 AD/CE was approached by a Roman who asked, ‘Explain to me the Torah standing on one leg and I will become a Jew’ (or words to that effect; (Why one leg?) The aspiration I imagine was deprecation).

Hillel replied, ‘Treat others as you would have them treat you, that is the Torah, the rest is commentary; go and study.’

I thought this was a risky start (?too Jewish) although I prefaced it with an allusion to the Golden Rule which most children are taught in Primary School and encompasses Judaism, Islam, Christianity, Hinduism and other mainstream beliefs (not Nazism, Mr Sunak). It is the truism that maintains peaceable societies. (It is also the be-all and end-all of my approach to medicine and healthcare – see here).

I couldn’t tell if there was a connection.

A couple of students in the front row, two young men, one with a curly bob were animatedly talking throughout my introduction.

I flashed-forward a decade and imagined them strutting around a hospital wards, missing the point as they seemed to miss it now.

When I asked them to not talk, they stopped although one started to furiously type on his keyboard.

This year I felt a disconnect like no other.

Previously, there was something, eye contact, smirks, grimaces, or laughter at my jokes.

It felt like talking to a wall.

Like Zoom when everyone has their cameras switched-off. Only, I was standing in a sweaty hall.

My lectures or talks are always bound with interaction, questions and answers, discussion.

Nada.

It was hard to determine whether they were not interested or didn’t care.

I rambled.

At one point I started coughing.

The air was so dry, it was blocking my throat.

I hadn’t brought a drink (All the lecturers bring drinks, my son, later told me).

I was struggling to speak.

Cough. Cough.

‘Does anyone have a drink?’

I asked.

Again, blank faces.

A void.

I coughed more, was struggling to talk.

‘OK, I will see how far I can go,’ I added.

Eventually a young woman brought me a drink.

A smidgen of compassion.

Do unto others…

I continued.

I took the students through definitions and explanations of age and ageing, of falls, frailty, dementia and delirium, person-centred care, hospital admission avoidance and the harms of hospitalisation.

I described my patient who had waited almost three hours, lying on the ground outside her house waiting for an ambulance; she developed hypothermia in addition to her broken hip.

I shared my experiences of staff mis-naming patients, getting them wrong, misconstruing their preferences, what matters.

I showed my photo of M’s room in the care home (below), the quintessence of person-centred care (see here)

More emptiness.

Hollow.

I left feeling empty.

At the start, following Hillel, I even explained to the students that my iCloud had disappeared and I had created the whole lecture from scratch over the preceding weekend.

An image flashed of my lying on the ground, choking perhaps on a Ronald Reagan peanut and the crowd watching me turn blue.

Yes, I have changed; the students have changed more.

And this is not their doing.

This is me and the rest of our society.

When millennials think of the future, and they perceive our worries, our woes, our existential dread that is worse than the Cold Ward nuclear threat I experienced at their age.

They are faced with a selfish self-serving government, a society that allows the minority to flourish and everyone else to sink, that prices them out of the housing market, that has removed retirement and replaced it with zero-hours Deliveroo.

On Thursday night I watched the Channel 4 documentary Undercover Ambulance. You might call it a tragedy of the NHS. In which a young Ambulance Medical Technician, undercover, revealed the breaks, the people like my patient who waited so long they died, the patients lining the hospital corridors, the collapse of a world-leader.

The film ended with his resignation.

I wonder what he is doing now.

A few weeks ago, I asked the young doctor working with me, ‘Did you imagine it would be like this in the UK?’ ‘No’, he replied. I don’t know if he grew-up in an India that still romanticises the UK or he personally chose to focus on other things.

I haven’t given-up on teaching.

I’ll continue one-to-one.

I have already approached the Ambulance Service.

No one wants to read negativity.

Apologies.

What can you expect from a blog called ‘The last lecture’?

It isn’t all doom and gloom.

The chaos has created opportunities for working and caring in different ways (Check-out our Virtual Ward) although I suspect it is the majority, the mainstream that remains tangled.

And this is the uncertainty into which these young are developing, moving towards; not the naïve idealism of ‘wanting to help people’ that was (and is) my motto.

‘What do you want?’ I should have asked.

‘An interesting lecture,’ they might have replied.

Post-blog caveat.

Sitting in Kwik Fit.

The valve of my car tyre is broken*. Hissing air, only inflated by the twiddly cap.

Young guy, fiddling with phone.

Old man, walking stick, struggling with door.

Young guy helps older guy.

No question.

Just active, respectful, do unto others.

I wonder.

*Valve fixed.

Two front tyres need replacing. Slow puncture in third.

I’ve been driving a death-trap.

Sigh.

Why Israel is not an Apartheid State & a risky date acquisition

For Yael &

Fond memories.

This is not a historical argument,

It is not the absolutes,

It is my take.

A month ago, I visited Waitrose in Sheffield.

Outside, a group of middle-aged, middle-class, mostly white men and women were protesting.

Asking me not to purchase Israeli dates.

Yes, dates, tamar (תמר) in Hebrew.

It seems that Waitrose, and later, I discovered, M&S, sell dates from Israel.

Other dates are available; I have a box of Jordanian ones in my cupboard.

When I told my daughter she was angry,

She saw-through the patina of self-righteousness these fair-weather warriors displayed,

‘Of all the shops to protest, they chose Waitrose!’

The reference was to Waitrose being the only shop in Sheffield to sell Kosher food.

And yes, BDS

Or,

Boycott, divest and sanction is,

Antisemitic.

It singles-out Israel as the worst of the worst, the one to dodge, avoid at all costs.

It is the one nation in the world to be called (in 2023) an Apartheid State.

An allusion to

South Africa.

And when I hear this, I take offence.

I can’t help myself.

To start, let’s ask, what was Apartheid?

My understanding, from reading Biko, Mandela and Paton

It was a system functioning in South Africa that separated whites from blacks,

Strict laws kept the races apart,

A racialist divide that influenced every aspect of life.

A system based upon inequality, inequity.

With skin colour and parentage as the basis.

One which caused untold suffering, indignity, and pain to millions.

I am not an expert in this field,

So don’t shoot me if I get something wrong, this is just my interpretation (one, that you could argue, I should let lie, but there you go, that’s me).

My sense of the end of Apartheid was the lines of voters snaking across our TV screen as I sat in an unheated house in Dundee with Callum and Afghan. It came with the Truth and Reconciliation committee, with Mandela’s election to president.

All that.

You can’t underestimate the significance of that moment that sent waves across the planet, directing us towards a new future, our present modernity.

And Israel and dates.

My brother, an Israeli (so am I – yes, this article is a biased), tells me it was a former member of Pink Floyd who started BDS.

Again, sorry, I haven’t researched, although I know Roger Waters was recently shouting at the UN about the evils of Israel.

Yesterday I listened to a Podcast about the Talmud, Rabbi Woolf, a Chassid living in New York related some stories, he discussed the tiny nature of Israel, it’s place on the map and questioned why, of all the nations of the world, Israel and her people are picked-upon, singled out as the ultimate baddies with date sanctions.

This is an argument taken by many, ‘Why us? Look at them,’ and yes, there is something in this.

The population of Israel is approximately 10 million (Arabs, Jews, Druze, Christians, Bahai and so on), as a percentage of the world that is miniscule.

The ratio of 1 to 1000 (approx!) suggests an inequity of spotlight.

No one has asked me not to purchase Russian dates (supposing they exist – suspect not), for example. I haven’t seen an anti-war protest in the last six months; the World Cup was held in Qatar this winter, billions of dollars flowed into the Qatari Royal Families coffers; Joe Lycett threatened to burn some money.

The argument is not that there is nothing bad happening in Israel, that the Palestinian situation is not awful, that the poverty and violence of the Gaza strip is not appalling, but, why, should Israel be singled-out.

Part of the answer can be found in the Passover Seder, the ceremony held in parallel with Easter; the five questions are traditionally asked by the youngest child in the family, with the signature being, ‘Why is this night different from all other nights?’ (The answer can be found in the Haggadah).

Why focus on Israel when there are so many other bad countries out there?

What is different?

What is unique?

A usual trope is, ‘You stole the Palestinian’s land,’ this, an oversimplification of geography and history doesn’t work.

Sure, there was a Palestine governed by the British, before that the Ottomans, before them the Crusaders and the Romans, before them the Greeks and the Persians.

People have been fighting over the thin strip of land at the end of the Mediterranean for thousands of years.

‘We had it first’ doesn’t wash as an argument as you then must ask, ‘Who are we?’

I can’t or won’t get into the details, although if you want a well-balanced argument, listen to Darryl Cooper’s Podcast – he tells the history in incredible (20 hours) detail.

Should we give Australia back to the Aboriginal people? America to the Native Americans? South America? Brazil, Peru, Mexico to the Incas or Aztecs?

We could run some mitochondrial genomics and determine who should go where and who should be in charge.

I don’t want to be facetious; it is a serious question.

Who owns the land, who are the people?

No, we can never say.

Another argument for or against Israel is that it is occupied by immigrants, the Palestinians are the ones who should be in charge.

Again, a story told to all Jewish children relates to the exiles, the expulsions of the Jews from Israel to Assyria then Babylon then the listless moving of our people from Africa to Europe to America, the removals from England, Spain, Portugal, the Pogroms, the Holocaust.

The plant, the Wandering Jew is named after us, or we it; this works both ways.

No, I can’t tell you the history of the Palestinian People as well as I can tell you my own and yet, I don’t hear anyone saying, ‘Don’t buy Palestinian dates,’ either.

The history, as I say is long and convoluted.

Israel became a state in 1948.

With the declaration of Independence there followed the Israeli War of Independence (the Nakba, النكبة according to Palestinians = catastrophe). Followed soon after by a series of wars that cost the lives of many.

1948 was a few short years after the liberation of Bergen Belsen.

The Jewish psyche has been scarred by intergenerational trauma.

We don’t see things as clearly as we might.

In 1948, the Israeli state’s declaration of Independence set-out a mandate to treat people equally, regardless of their religion. Yes, it is the Jewish state (just as Britain is a Christian state), but there was space and protection for Christians, Muslims, and others.

Israel is a democracy.

Elections are held and people vote, the requirement being they are a citizen of Israel.

Race or religion does not influence who can vote.

If you are unwell in Israel and need medical attention, whether you are Jewish, Muslim, or Christian, a doctor will help you, and they too might be Christian, Muslim, or Jewish; if you are in a hospital ward you will lie in bed beside someone of a different faith.

Jewish, Christian, Druze and Muslim communities in some parts of the country live separately, from choice, as happens across the world, some cities have mixed populations with people getting-on regardless of their ethnicity, skin colour or God. They shop in the same shops, go to the same schools, beaches, swimming baths, hairdressers.

This is not Apartheid.

Yes, there is a problem.

The Palestinian people live in poverty, they are disenfranchised, they do not have freedom of movement. The West Bank is run by the Palestinian Authority and the Gaza Strip by Hamas; two islands of populace that represent a nexus of the BDS’rs ire.

Most don’t have an answer.

There was the two-state solution, there is the current right-wing ‘pretend they aren’t there’ – neither are realistic.

Hamas doesn’t want Israel to exist. They call for its destruction, with the most common image being that of pushing Jews into the sea. (For Israel, a long-thin strip of land this is apposite.)

A state of war exists between Gaza and Israel. I don’t know the solution which is a stalemate and like most situations across the planet is not about the poor people on the street who struggle to make ends-meet, more about the rich and the powerful and their plays for control.

This isn’t Apartheid, it is two people forced into a stalemate by inadequate leadership.

The abuse of the children, the soldiers, at the borders, the guards, the indignity, the border crossings, and so on, are often given as arguments in favour of the Apartheid argument.

Let’s face it, people can be shites.

Armies often consist of young people, in certain areas, conscripts who are made to don uniforms and gift a proportion of their time to serving their country.

There are abuses of power.

Yes, I said it.

Israeli soldiers can and do behave atrociously towards Palestinians, often caught on camera by Human Rights Watch and others.

I am not defending this.

Yesterdaty, my daughter, quoting, I think The Guardian, informed me that one in a hundred police officers in the UK were facing criminal charges last year.

This doesn’t mean all police are bad.

Last weekend when I was protesting in support of the Rotherham Asylum seekers, some of the people abused the police when they asserted their rights to control movement (stopping a fight) – ‘pig’ ‘fascist’ were shouted. And, no, the police in the UK are not fascists (although there are probably some fascists who are police, there are likely more police who believe in democracy, equality, and human rights).

One or a hundred bad eggs is not Apartheid.

If you are an Arab living in Israel, a so-called ‘Israeli Arab’ you can become elected to the Knesset – the Israeli Parliament.

This does not happen in an Apartheid state.

Yes, Israel has many things wrong.

It has elements of American society that have spoiled the original aspirations for a ‘light unto the nations’ – 21^st Century consumerism, Netflix, social media, and big business don’t fit with socialism.

Is the US better? The UK? France? Nigeria? Argentina?

I am not aware of a utopia on our planet.

I don’t know a place, even amongst the Scandinavians where everything is wonderful, there are no bad people, no criminals, manipulators, or cheats.

We are human, our planet is controlled by humans with all their flaws.

This blog has likely not changed anyone’s opinion.

It wasn’t my intention. I tend to be an expresser of ideas rather than a changer of minds.

The next time someone tells you not to buy an Israeli date, please think, please consider that the date is innocent.

Please consider the individual is either misled, confused or ignorant.

They are protesting Israel because they can, because they see a simplistic explanation of right and wrong. Israel bad, Palestine good.

Anyone who considers the world in this black and white fashion is missing the point.