tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30768542011-11-09T05:59:52.535-08:00There must be a point.Newslighterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02741526063938736663noreply@blogger.comBlogger351100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3076854.post-3852769202002-07-23T20:00:00.000-07:002002-07-23T20:00:07.176-07:00

Is this going to work? I'm writing this entry in an email and having it sent directly to my blog. I didn't know you could do this until now. If it works then it could be pretty useful.

Newslighterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02741526063938736663noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3076854.post-852768102002-07-23T19:19:00.000-07:002002-07-23T19:19:43.113-07:00

I didn't realise how long it had been since I put an entry on here. Anyway, things have been happening at last. I now have a date for my transplant - 17 September. Dad and I met in Manchester last week with the surgeon. Apparently Dad's passed all his medical tests and is an excellent match too. It seems like his op is going to be more major than mine. They have to make a pretty big incision and

Newslighterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02741526063938736663noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3076854.post-3750590512002-04-04T14:40:00.000-08:002002-04-04T14:40:58.280-08:00

Blood pressure creeping back up at a horrible rate along with headaches and blinking spot in the corner of my right eye. Strangely, while most people end a dialysis session with low blood pressure, mine is always now much higher than when I started. I'm really not enjoying dialysis any more. The headaches get worse soon after the start of treatment which makes it impoossible to sleep, and I find

Newslighterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02741526063938736663noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3076854.post-750290802002-03-21T19:21:00.000-08:002002-04-04T13:55:53.000-08:00

Mum's still at Les Marronniers and it looks like she's making progress with the house renovations. She emailed Dad to say that work would be finished by the end of the week and the house would be ready for guests. Les Marronniers - almost ready to let!!

Newslighterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02741526063938736663noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3076854.post-750189862002-03-17T18:17:00.000-08:002002-03-17T18:17:55.263-08:00

Pimp Wars is addictive. I've been playing for almost a week now and have an empire of 2000 well-armed thugs and 1500 whores who earn me plenty of money. It's a great way of wasting time.

Newslighterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02741526063938736663noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3076854.post-750189802002-03-17T18:14:00.000-08:002002-03-17T18:14:52.070-08:00

The weekend went by in a blur. I slept until 1pm on Saturday but strangely felt exhausted by 7pm and slept on the sofa until midnight. I had meant to visit Ben in the evening - he came up with Wil in the afternoon and invited me over. From midnight to 7am I watched TV, surfed aimlessly and washed the dishes before going to bed where I stayed until 8pm. At least it was a cheap weekend.

Newslighterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02741526063938736663noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3076854.post-750111092002-03-13T18:21:00.000-08:002002-03-13T18:24:00.000-08:00

I'm getting to know a pair of Daily Mail racists. He's a retired policeman and she is his uptight wife. Retired, they both spend their days driving patients to hospital appointments. I came across them when I started seeing a flashing black spot in my right eye. The hospital immediately banned me from driving to dialysis and arranged for me to be taken there and back by hospital car. They are

Newslighterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02741526063938736663noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3076854.post-750093132002-03-12T23:08:00.000-08:002002-03-12T23:08:28.856-08:00

Just watched a beautiful film. It's called ’Smoke’ and it's a tale of a New York cigar shop owner, a writer, and a teenage boy. I don't usually watch films twice but I think I will make an exception with this one.

Newslighterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02741526063938736663noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3076854.post-104177792002-03-05T11:45:00.000-08:002002-03-05T11:45:28.260-08:00

Blogskins.com is a great idea. People can submit designs for blogs for others to apply to their own blogs. Unfortunately I was unable, for some reason, to apply any of the styles to Blink. With a bit of luck this is only a temporary glitch. Right now there are only around thirty designs - some good and some downrght dreadful - but it's the kind of site which I think will grow pretty fast.

Newslighterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02741526063938736663noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3076854.post-103914532002-03-04T19:18:00.000-08:002002-03-04T19:18:29.050-08:00

I seem to have got to the bottom of the transplant logjam. Everything came to a mysterious halt in Dad's testing to be a donor of a kidney for me a few weeks before Christmas. It started when Manchester's transplant co-ordinator mysteriously disappeard. All we could discover was that she had 'left rather suddenley". Today with one simple phone call I found her replacement who quickly arranged for

Newslighterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02741526063938736663noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3076854.post-100676382002-02-24T07:52:00.000-08:002002-02-24T07:52:07.870-08:00

The widow of Daniel Pearl wrote a beautiful piece about her husband after his murder by kidnappers in Pakistan.

Newslighterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02741526063938736663noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3076854.post-99937072002-02-21T22:52:00.000-08:002002-02-21T22:54:43.000-08:00

Lots of strange sleep over the past few days. On Wednesday I didn't wake until after 4pm when I was due at the hospital by 4. I phoned the hospital and told them my car had broken down then almost killed myself driving stupidly fast to Shrewsbury. I won't do that again in a while. Blood pressure high again - 212/118 and lots of headaches. Ben called tonight from France. Sounds like they are

Newslighterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02741526063938736663noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3076854.post-97898622002-02-16T10:31:00.000-08:002002-02-16T10:33:27.000-08:00

I dreamed of something very complicated last night and woke with a deep headache at around 2pm. Dialysis is getting worse in that it leaves me in a zombie-like state for 24 hours afterwards. Mum, Hope and Ben set off for France yesterday to sort out Les Marronniers. I worry about them driving so far. Very cold here and I've still got no oil for the rayburn. Right now I'm wrapped in a blanket and

Newslighterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02741526063938736663noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3076854.post-95379342002-02-08T19:47:00.000-08:002002-02-08T19:47:57.540-08:00

Prince Charles, a fashion icon for our age, shows off his stylish new jacket.. Hey! Where can I get one of those?

Newslighterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02741526063938736663noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3076854.post-95343862002-02-08T17:37:00.000-08:002002-02-08T19:26:11.000-08:00

BT is taking its controversial hyperlinks patent suit to court next week. The telco claims it owns the patent for the ubiquitous web feature according to a 1976 filing, which expires in five years time. The telco could demand licence fees for the use of the technology should it be successful. Nice to see BT still acting as greedily stupid as ever. It's going to be fun if the unthinkable happens

Newslighterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02741526063938736663noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3076854.post-95324152002-02-08T16:19:00.000-08:002002-02-08T16:20:27.000-08:00

I took the plunge and paid $35 for Blogger Pro. There's not much different about it to the free version - apart from the ability to post drafts and future items, plus a nicer 'Blog This' box. I have high hopes of lots more innovations in the near future. Oh, I just noticed, there's somewhere for an item title too which is a nice touch. And is it just my imagination or is it much quicker to post

Newslighterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02741526063938736663noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3076854.post-95036852002-02-07T20:23:00.000-08:002002-02-07T20:23:57.213-08:00

A letter from Mr Riad, the transplant surgeon in Manchester, came today. He's decided to get all the tests on Dad done in Preston which should speed things up. When I saw him last September I assumed the transplant would take place in less than a month. Now it looks like I have a few more months to wait - as long as Dad is considered fit enough to be a donor. I spent a lot of time tonight

Newslighterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02741526063938736663noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3076854.post-95030382002-02-07T20:04:00.000-08:002002-02-07T20:25:16.000-08:00

I can't face eating the hash cookies. They have a strange smell. I melted a bar of chocolate and covered the cookies. I'll give them to Ben tomorrow and see what he thinks. A TV programme tonight on the state of the NHS shows that Britain is still in the third world of health care. A major neurosurgery unit could not afford a device, called a Neuro-navigator, to help them locate the exact

Newslighterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02741526063938736663noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3076854.post-94284552002-02-05T21:46:00.000-08:002002-02-05T22:14:50.000-08:00

I've got some hash brownies in the oven. This is an experimental recipe using dried leaves from a pruning session, dried and crumbled to powder. The powder was added to a lump of butter in a pan and heated to just below boiling point before simmering for three minutes, stirring constantly. Then I discovered there were no eggs. They're fairly crucial to the recipe but I decided to carry on.

Newslighterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02741526063938736663noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3076854.post-94216472002-02-05T18:20:00.000-08:002002-02-06T00:44:39.000-08:00

I love this picture. I didn’t take it. I was sent it by a friend about three years ago before I was due to travel from St. Petersburg to Beijing on the Trans-Siberian Railway. Venturing deeper into the wilderness of Siberia this is exactly the scene that greeted us as we pulled in at remote stations. Everyone is ther to greet the train, and during the ten minute stop tere is a chaotic flurry of

Newslighterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02741526063938736663noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3076854.post-94209952002-02-05T18:01:00.000-08:002002-02-05T18:01:58.900-08:00

I'm messing around with Jabber (actually the Mac version called Jabbernaut) which I keep reading about. It's a chat client which is supposed to work with Yahoo, MSN, ICQ etc. But it's not that straightforward to understand - at least not for me - and there are no instrictions. Any advice gratefully received.

Newslighterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02741526063938736663noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3076854.post-94191742002-02-05T17:05:00.000-08:002002-02-05T17:05:38.650-08:00

It's Tuesday night and Im starting to feel like a human again. Monday's dialysis session went badly. At the end of the session XXXXX was hurrying to get me off the machine so she could go home and she forgot to wash back the blood from the machine back into me. At least two pints of blood lost which has left me cold and breathless. She was terribly upset when she realised what she had done. It

Newslighterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02741526063938736663noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3076854.post-93334792002-02-03T10:24:00.000-08:002002-02-03T10:25:37.000-08:00

I suppose it was a bit of a disastrous Sunday lunch trip today. The weather, surprisingly was beautiful, so we were lulled into forgetting about the biblical storms of the previous fortnight. Kate, Ben, Wil and I got about halfway to Hereford before we met the first road closures. The river Wye was visible in the distance - banks broken and water oozing across acres of farm-land. The diversion

Newslighterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02741526063938736663noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3076854.post-93330572002-02-03T10:06:00.000-08:002002-02-03T10:06:16.116-08:00

Ben and Mum are off to France next week to tidy up the house and kit it out with some stuff to make it more liveable. Looking at the pictures of it last night I don't think it looks half as bad as I thought it did when we went to visit in February. I'm looking forward to staying there this summer when the weather's good. pictures

Newslighterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02741526063938736663noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3076854.post-93328642002-02-03T09:59:00.000-08:002002-02-03T09:59:40.673-08:00

A disturbing article in the New England Journal of Medicine describes an experiment which proves that daily dialysis leads to a much longer life than the regular every other day option. I don't think I could handle every day. I think I'll just opt for a happier but shorter life.

Newslighterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02741526063938736663noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3076854.post-93312732002-02-03T08:48:00.000-08:002002-02-03T08:58:49.000-08:00

Well. I've worked out how to get my webcam image onto this site. It was simpler than I thought - and it works, amazingly enough. My webcam.

Newslighterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02741526063938736663noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3076854.post-93189642002-02-02T19:44:00.000-08:002002-02-02T19:45:37.000-08:00

The storms continue. Some amazing pictures of rain-lashed seafronts. It's due to continue right through the week. Crickhowell was completely cut off from civilaisation by flooding.

Newslighterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02741526063938736663noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3076854.post-93188052002-02-02T19:38:00.000-08:002002-02-02T19:39:41.000-08:00

I spent a lot of time today (well actually yesterday seeing as it's now almost 3.30am) playing with a nifty little video chat application that works almost perfectly with my new webcam, apart from with sound; I think I will need to get a mic to use with it. I got up ridiculously early this morning feeling really bad. I was aching all over and had a throbbing headache. I just couldn't get

Newslighterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02741526063938736663noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3076854.post-92677222002-02-01T05:17:00.000-08:002002-02-01T05:20:34.000-08:00

Two CD's from Amazon today. I was expecting three but one is out of stock so I'l just have to wait impatiently for that one. I was in a nostagic mood the other night whem I ordered Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd and REM's Automatic for the People. I also bought a CD I've always wanted - Voyage to the Bottom of the Road by Half Man Half Biscuit. The post also contained the latest council

Newslighterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02741526063938736663noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3076854.post-92635002002-02-01T00:39:00.000-08:002002-02-01T00:47:13.000-08:00

The house is still a mess . I've just had a bath then a couple of hours' sleep. I have to be at the hopital for dialysis at 4pm. Changing from early morning shifts to late afternoon has been strance. I was getting up at 5am to be at the hospital by 6am until last week; now I can stay in bed until 10 if I feel like it. The downsides are the extra traffic on the roads mid-afternoon and getting home

Newslighterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02741526063938736663noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3076854.post-92595412002-01-31T21:14:00.000-08:002002-02-01T00:49:13.000-08:00

This thing really could do with a spell-checker. I keep making typing errors and this log is full of them. If Blogger Pro has one then I may upgrade at some point. I'm getting obsessed with reading web-logs or following the links from them to esoteric places. I don't seem to get much work done these days because of it. Daypop's top 40 is one of my first calls of the day. As my morning email

Newslighterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02741526063938736663noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3076854.post-92580602002-01-31T20:26:00.000-08:002002-01-31T21:06:00.000-08:00

It doesn't look like I'm going to get sued now - although it seemed fairly unlikely all along. I had published a news release on News Wales from Peter Rogers, the Tory assembly member from Anglesey, in which he speculated that Plaid Cymru leader Ieuan Wyn-Jones would leave Anglesey at the next elections for a safer constituency. Ieuan Wyn-Jones got very angry at this suggestion and threatened to

Newslighterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02741526063938736663noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3076854.post-92574752002-01-31T20:05:00.000-08:002002-01-31T20:12:21.000-08:00

I'm 36 today. It's almost 4am and my shoulder hurts. Gwen's coming today to clean the place up so I better get the worst of the mess out of the way before she gets here. The one thing I was dreading dealing with was quickly sorted out by Ben - a large mutilated dead rat in my porch which had been bought in as a gift by Otis. I couldn't even bear to look at it. Ben scooped it up onto a magazine

Newslighterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02741526063938736663noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3076854.post-92570182002-01-31T19:51:00.000-08:002002-01-31T19:51:06.190-08:00

I just added the Blog This thing to my links bar. Doas it work?

Newslighterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02741526063938736663noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3076854.post-92566472002-01-31T19:38:00.000-08:002002-01-31T19:40:46.000-08:00

Ben came round tonight and bought a cable so I can connect the iBook to the iMac. This should make life easier as I have so much stuff on the old iMac. He also set up my webcam which uses my matchbox-sized camera I just had to buy last week. Had a rough day today. There seems to be a pattern to it. I have two good days then a bad one. I got up around nine but by 2pm I was exhausted and fell

Newslighterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02741526063938736663noreply@blogger.com