The Difference A Year Makes.

“Maybe this Christmas will mean something more
Maybe this year love will appear
Deeper than ever before”

-Tracey Thorn, Maybe This Christmas

This time last year, I was writing this post, collecting together songs that I felt best summarised why I find Christmas such an emotional time.

Of course, I’ve been listening to that playlist on repeat for weeks this year too, but it sounds different to me this time round. Its transformed from a quietly melancholic collection to one of optimism.

This time last year, I was steadfastly single. I refused to believe in love in the same way I used to do in the past. I had never even said the word to anyone else (except for friends) for years. I was stubbornly resisting the advances of a man who I knew to be very wonderful, on the basis that I would likely just mess it all up anyway and hurt him, given that I was, in my own head, such an awful and cynical heartless monster who would clearly ruin his life.

Luckily, my willpower (helped along by a fair amount of beer) failed me eventually and we went on a date in January. This is probably the best decision I have made, ever. What has followed has been better than I could have ever imagined. I’ve gone from refusing to acknowledge the L-word to telling him many, many times a day that I love him. He puts up with me and my mood swings, is happy to leave me alone when I need social recharge time, and is just really quite marvellous. He makes me laugh despite his cracker joke-level sense of humour, gives great hugs, and most importantly buys me Lego. For the first time in blummin’ yonks, I feel safe, and like I’ve come home.

“So happy new year, this is the one we talked about and

Happy New Year, this is where it all works out

This is where is comes together and everything comes through

Happy ever after all comes true”

-Simma, Happy New Year

So going into this new year, everything seems different. We’re moving into a new house together, and I really can’t wait. The cat and the hamster have double-barrelled surnames. I have a new job lined up, though it’s in the same centre and will involve moving a mere several metres across the office to a different desk. I still worry that it’ll all come crashing down at some point, but I’m managing to keep those thoughts in check and just enjoy it all for the most part.

Hopefully I’m not sounding too smug here. I just want you all to know about the good things that happen, since I tell you probably far too much about the bad stuff. I’ve had some amazing e-mails in the past from readers who have been through similar experiences to me, and I’d like you to know that things can change and can end up even being miles better than they ever were before.

I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and New Year. I know this time of year can be really hard for some. I send my love and hugs to you. 

Hxxx

The Prometheus Pants Problem Explained

Prometheus. It’s the film that disappointed pretty much everyone. The internet is flooded with in depth critiques of it, many of which refer to the lack of real science, along with the deep metaphysical and philosophical issues with it. All of these posts, however, have missed what I found to be the most problematic feature of the film: Underwear.

And yes, I know it came out two years ago, and it’s a bit weird to be writing a blog post about it now, but I’ve found myself trying to explain the Prometheus Pants Problem (PPP) to a few people, both verbally and on Twitter of late. Its complexity and importance means that 140 characters will just not do, and I think it is important to have a robust reference source to refer people to when explaining all aspects of the PPP.

It is important to note, I think, that in actual fact I vaguely enjoyed Prometheus. When I saw it at the cinema, I hadn’t seen any of the Alien films (I know, I know), but I thought it was worth a shot anyway. I found the running about with lots of alien goo stuff flying about fairly entertaining. The problems came when they kept interrupting the frivolous alien romp bits with Important Thinly Veiled Stuff About God, which made me rather lose patience. And, of course, I ended up pretty fixated on the PPP, which meant that I couldn’t think about anything else in the film. I’m like that- I’ll fixate myself on one tiny thing that happens for a millisecond, and then spend the entire rest of the film thinking and internally ranting about it.

1.       The Need for Pants At All.

Let’s be honest with ourselves here. You get in from a hard day’s work. You’re not expecting anyone. You’ve got a whole night of delicious nothingness stretching ahead of you. Its toasty warm in your home. What’s the first thing you do? You take off your uncomfortable outer wear, and let it all hang out, right? I mean, no one is going to see you and you’re in the comfort of your own home, so why the hell not wander around in all of your naked birthday suited glory if you want to?

Perhaps you wear your PJs instead, or a pair of comfy pants. That’s probably because, deep down, you’re sort of somehow worried that someone might see. You might get an unexpected visitor, or the pizza man might be arriving at any point. But imagine for a second that you are the only person alive at that point in time. What’s the point in clothes then? Especially if you can absolutely, categorically be sure that you’re the only one, because you’re the person who creates lifein the first place, and you haven’t yet drank the wormy goo that you need in order to do so yet.

So, in the opening seconds of Prometheus, we’ve got our engineer guy, on a planet in which he hasn’t yet created life (except for, well, all the plant life that is already there, but I think we’re supposed to ignore that). Now, never mind your front room, imagine having an entire planet all to yourself. Would you wear pants? Of course you wouldn’t. Any sane person would be running about joyfully, jiggling here there and everywhere, enjoying the sense of freedom. You’d let every little bit hang and flop about as much as you like, because who is going to be there to judge?

2.       The Need For Pants At All Part 2.

We don’t ever see any Female Engineers at any point in Prometheus. Thanks for that bit of everyday sexism, Ridley. The Baldy One does not seem to require any sort of sexual act to create life: just a shot of tarry goo, and that’s that.

 So on this basis, would they even have genitals at all? And even if they did, why would they be considered a special part that needs to be nestled away from prying eyes, if the reproductive act doesn’t need to take place? 

3.       Disappointing Pant Technology

Let’s play devil’s advocate here for a while and accept that pants are required for some unknown reason. This then leads on to another problematic issue.

These engineer types appear to be pretty smart. After all, they are the purported creators of life itself, right? Yet with all of their super advanced technology and supremely high IQs, the best they can come up with is a couple of bandages wrapped around themselves, nappy-like.

That just doesn’t ring true to me. Even our lowly human selves can come up with better pant technology than that. We have all sorts of colours, fabrics, designs, access holes, fastenings, elastic etc. But no, this superior life form instead decides to wrap some bandages around its crotch. How much of a faff must those things be to get into? They’d be a right clart on to get back out of if you need a wee. Do they need someone else to help them put them on in the morning, holding the bandages while they spin themselves around? How undignified and inconvenient.

4.       Lack of Pant Technology Evolution

This first engineer scene is Prometheus presumably takes place thousands of years prior to all of the kerfuffle depicted in the rest of the film. And yet, we are supposed to believe that pant technology has remained starkly primitive through all of this time?

The evidence for this is Noomi, who is merrily wandering around, post-surgery, wearing what is clearly another pair of low tech bandage pants, along with a matching bra. What’s happened to underwire technology? Why are people from this time still wearing the same design of crap pants as their creators? Surely, in the intervening millennia, someone would have realised elastic exists.

And that, dear friends, is a brief examination of the Prometheus Pants Problem. I’ve seen it creeping into other films since (most recently Guardians of the Galaxy), and I won’t rest until these important questions are answered, in full.

Other things to note about Prometheus:

-They appear to use Joseph Joseph kitchen implements. Nice to know that this mid-range kitchenware design brand is still going strong that fair into the future.

-Wandering around important historic sites that have been sealed off for thousands of years should probably be done in a more respectful way, if you’re wanting to preserve it for proper research. One guy says at some point “We’ve changed the atmosphere in here”. Well, yes, yes you have, though its nowt to do with the inherent evilness of mankind, and everything to do with barging in, blithely breathing your modern germs all over everything. If a door has been shut for thousands of years, I’d imagine that yes, it might get a little musty in there. Opening the door and allowing a bit of fresh air in is likely to change the atmosphere somewhat.

-The Dead Head that explodes: Apparently the theory behind this is that this head, reawakened after a very long time, can’t cope with how crap, evil and corrupt the world now is so it explodes. Now, I’m no expert in these matters, but I’m pretty sure that exposing a thousand year old corpse to all sorts of new atmospheres might well lead to a build up of some gases, which on electrocution, may well then explode.

-The most obvious plot hole of them all, which has most probably been covered in great detail elsewhere, still annoys me. Noomi’s oxygen is about to run out, and its all very tense indeed, but then phew, she is okay. However, it appear to magically recharge itself somehow whilst she tends to her errant offspring, as when she needs it again afterwards the oxygen level in there is just fine. Grrr.

Anyway, I’ll shut up for now, though I won’t apologise for bringing this important matter to your attention. And yes, you will now be forever destined to notice intently all pants being worn in any sci-fi movie, and yes, it will probably ruin all enjoyment for you. You’re welcome :D

Hxxxxx

to study pharmacy, or not to study pharmacy?

I always wanted to be an archaeologist, growing up. I knew, however, that this was probably a pipedream- partly because I dislike creepy crawlies, but mostly because I was pretty sure in my childhood brain that everything interesting would have been dug up already by the time I was old enough to work.

Turns out I was wrong about that, but I’m still really proud of the profession I ended up in. I remember wandering up to the local shops with my Mum when I was little. We were talking vaguely about the future, when we had a little nose around the local chemist’s shop, cooing at the colourful bubblebaths and hairgrips that they had in stock.

“I know”, Mum said. “Why don’t you become a pharmacist?”

“What’s one of those?”, I asked. As far as I was concerned, the chemist’s shop was a place to buy cheap make-up and bath salts.

“Well, they stand in the back and mix up the medicines”. That’s it, I was hooked. I had images of brewing potions, mixing up gloopy ointments, and all sorts of stuff that, it turns out, in real life you only actually get to do for a couple of hours as an undergraduate. But my decision was made, and all the rest of my life I knew I was going to be a pharmacist.

As I got older, and I started telling people what I wanted to do, I used to hear nothing but positive things. I worked as a counter assistant in my local super market, and locums always used to tell me “You’ll never be out of work. Everyone is always desperate for pharmacists.”

At the time I graduated (2006), it still hadn’t been that long since the Great Pharmacist Shortage. This happened because the old style three year degree now became a four year Masters degree- so there was one year where no newly qualified pharmacists came on the scene. Everywhere you looked, people were crying out for a full time pharmacist to work for them. Whatever happened, you always knew that you could locum as a back up, and earn a good wage doing so.

As university went on, and I started applying for pre-reg places, I got worried. Not because I didn’t think I would get a place- in actual fact I was being courted by several companies, all of whom were clamouring to fill their pre-reg spots. I think I did maybe 10 interviews, and I got job offers from every one of them (and believe me, some of those interviews I was really quite atrocious in). No, I was worried, because I wanted to do my pre-reg in hospital, and I knew that pre-reg places really were limited in my local area- only 7 for the whole city.

I was lucky, and I got in. My year was really lucky, as it turns out there were enough jobs going for each of us pre-regs- though I actually went elsewhere. Whilst community pharmacy jobs were plentiful, hospital pharmacy was a lot more difficult to get a job in.

Nowadays, it has changed so much. I don’t think I can ever really hear myself saying the sort of things I was told to an enthusiastic school child now. “You’ll never be out of a job” would just simply be a massive lie.

When I was choosing universities, there were only a handful that actually offered pharmacy as a degree. In recent years there has been a proliferation of universities offering it now though, and as a result, the number of graduates is increasing year on year. I’m sure this isn’t the whole reason, but we have now reached a point where pre-registration places are becoming really hard to come by. There is a group of potential pharmacists, year on year, who will simply never be able to get a place anywhere.

So what does that mean? Well, you can’t register as a pharmacist, so you can’t work in your chosen profession. You’ve still got a Masters degree- but you’re actually pretty limited as to what you can do with it. Sure, its equivalent or better than a pharmacology degree, but you’ll always have a question hanging over your career, whatever you choose to do: “If you’ve got a pharmacy degree, why aren’t you a pharmacist?”. There’ll always be a slight, unfair, cloud of suspicion there. It means, even for those lucky enough to get pre-reg places, that jobs are more and ore difficult to come by, wages are being lowered despite responsibilities and workloads being higher, and locum shifts are both hard to get and pay an awful lot less.

Several places that I do locum shifts for have an email alert system for new shifts. On several occasions, I have received an email, checked my diary for my availability, then rang back immediately only to be told that all the shifts have gone already. The good thing that comes out of this is that, once you get your foot in the door, there is an incentive to work hard and become known as one of the best, most hardworking locums, because then you will get offered shifts first. The bad thing is that its now really hard to get that first step on the ladder.

How do we fix it? I have no idea, as it’s a multifactorial problem. A cap on the number of students studying pharmacy does seem logical, but that’s already been stamped upon by the Minister for Universities, science and cities Greg Clark MP, who has said:

“Having considered the evidence I have decided that it is not necessary to introduce a specific student number control for pharmacy. The government's objectives for pharmacy can best be achieved outside of a number control system. It is the government's policy to remove student number controls wherever possible to enable students to have greater choice and to encourage universities to offer better quality courses to attract students. I believe pharmacy students can and should benefit from this reform and not be restricted. Therefore there is no need to consider further options for a pharmacy number control.”

It seems to me that the one thing that Mr Clark isn’t considering is those students. Yes, they might have greater choice, but I wonder, if asked, where their priorities lie- would they rather have more choice, or would they rather have some security in their future. I wonder if it has occurred to him to ask them directly.

So it is that I, and a number of other pharmacists, are sadly starting to discourage students from looking at pharmacy as a profession. Its through no fault of their own, and its brilliant that so many young people want to be pharmacists- but its hard out there, and its only going to get harder. Our bright young potential pharmacists might be better off opting for a less focused, vocational degree.

Hxxx

Dear Kate

I’ve still not quite been able to come up with an adequate phrase to describe having social anxiety. Sometimes the old clichés are the best, and so I go with the duck- calmly floating above the water, but paddling like mad beneath.

I can be so good at hiding the furious paddling that even my closest friends have doubts that it exists. But if I were to invite you under the water, you’d see constant, frantic movement. You'd experience my physiological reactions going mad for no reason, reacting to the unforeseen horror of merely having a pleasant conversation with someone.  You'd be hit with tidal waves of thoughts, rushing over and over in a jumble. You'd hear that nasty, mean little internal monologue of mine telling you what other people are thinking (although they are probably not), how stupid you look (although you probably don’t), how boring you are (although you’re probably not). Then you'd feel the confusion and shame of cutting all these thoughts up with a knife of rationality. You'd see how that knife then turns on yourself because you just can't keep up with all of the mean thoughts, and you feel so weak for letting them take over you. 

Eventually, this state becomes your norm. It becomes background noise, and the peaks of it get even higher in moments where you feel threatened. Our metaphorical duck spends his days thrashing relentlessly under the water every second of everyday, and the tiniest of waves sends him into free-fall. Of course, Kate, you probably know how this feels already to a degree: it is stage fright that kept you away from touring for so long.

Moments of true calm are few and far between when you reach this point. When they do occur, you start worrying about them- internal silence starts to feel alien. Constant anxiety becomes your default position, and the otherworldliness of calm feels dangerous somehow.

That’s how I was this time last year. Things have now improved somewhat- thanks to the CBT, thanks to those around me, and in no small part thanks to my own stubbornness. I’m now at a point where the peaks are still there, but they’re not quite as insurmountable. My default position is no longer fight or flight, and I'm more able to quell the thought onslaught. True moments of stillness are, however, still relatively rare.

I’m never usually able to lose myself in a moment, as this stupid anxiety makes me constantly self-aware. The other night though, I experienced several blissful hours of basically forgetting that I existed. All thanks to you, Kate.

You’ve always been able to lift me out of terrible moods. One of the joys of living on my own is that I can get home, and crank up your music as loud as I like. I can sing, I can let go, and I can dance about with the cat without anyone laughing at me. I often find that you’re able to lift me out of an approaching mist. You've been the manufacturer of one of my most reliable coping mechanisms.

I saw Before The Dawn the other night. I was scared of going in alone, but within minutes I was chatting away with other people. We couldn't believe our luck. I've honestly never seen so many utterly excited people in one place before.

I know that everyone else has loved it. I've read the reviews, and I've seen the tweets. I expected it to be good, but what I didn't expect was to be completely enraptured- with you, with the story of a woman in the water, of a dawning day, with the detail. I had expected a couple of tears, perhaps a couple of whoops if I was feeling brave. What I hadn't expected was to realise that I was so taken in by it all that I was no longer self aware. I sort of came to, whilst dancing madly away to Cloudbusting, and realised that the waves had stopped for me for 3.5 hours. Here I was, on my own, in a situation that would usually scare me, completely and utterly swept up in the world of your making.

Thank you, Kate. Thank you for that gift.

Hxxx

Album Review: Lychnobite by Simma

There is a particular pub in Gatesheadwhich I rather like. It’s called The Central Bar and it holds good memories for me. It’s a traditional haunt for my good friends and I on Christmas Eve, it has an excellent range of beers, and does some good nosh too.

And so it was that on one particular Sunday afternoon just before Christmas, three friends and I were in there. We were suitably adorned in tacky, sparkly Christmas attire and were festively tipsy, when a chap started playing his acoustic guitar and singing in the corner of the pub.

Given our rather jolly state at the time, we showed our appreciation of this man’s lovely voice by bellowing along to some of the songs and inventing new interpretive dance routines to others (And thus, the great Gateshead Sit Down dance was born). We were a source of amusement for the singer, who declared that he’d never had anyone invent dances for him before and patiently explained that no magic was at play when we had loudly declared that we wanted him to play Fairytale Of New York then he actually did, prompting us to look drunkenly confused. “Girls, I’m not on the radio you know. I can actually hear you.” It was a really fun afternoon, and we left giggling hysterically and wondering if we could ever show our faces in there again.

The singer in question was Simma, and I’ve since seen him play several times. He fairly recently released his new album, Lychnobite, so I snapped up a copy of it and thought I would review it for you dear people.

On first listen, it’s on the whole a cheery affair, with upbeat tunes perfect for having on in the background while you do something else. Subsequent listens via headphones reveal a more melancholic, complex side to the album.

A particular highlight for me is “Black Dog”, a song about depression which combines a nifty little toe-tapping rhythm with an almost monotonous melody. This makes for an atmospheric juxtaposition, much like the illness itself. Next up is the joyous “Sing”, a marching, uplifting little song that I tend to happily belt out when I have it on at home.

Other songs are more calmly folky, all with a touch of cleverness to the songwriting that I find really pleasing. There is a clever use of vocals throughout the album (see Whisky Highway as an example), something which I find quite pleasingly different, given my previous experience of Simma is limited to him and one guitar in the corner of the Central Bar

“The Drink” is gorgeous, plaintive, and full of feeling. Meanwhile, “Sixteen Tons” is bluesy and pleasingly cynical, managing to blend together a very American sound with tales of Benwell woe. “Happy New Year” is likely to make its way onto my Christmas Songs For The Existentially Wounded list this year, with its mix of optimism and sadness for times gone by.

The other thing that I really like about Simma is how his Geordie accent creeps into the edges of his songs, lending them a little bit of added personality. All in all, this is a lovely, complicated album which is likely to be on heavy rotation in my household, nestled in nicely between Great Lakes by John Smith and Under Mountains by Rachel Sermanni. 

Hxxx

Making it up as I go along...

What better way to spend a Sunday than an eight-hour long improvised comedy workshop?



Now, I know that there are a lot of people who would jump for joy at the suggestion. I also know that I am really not one of them. I can be pretty reserved, and of course there is my social anxiety to factor in.



My startlingly good friend Shandy suggested it. She had been to similar sessions before, and thought it would be good for me. I trust her judgement, so I signed us up for it before I had a chance to regret it. And what a day it turned out to be.



Social anxiety is an odd creature. Recently, I’ve been learning about the main thing that makes it particularly odd- self-focus. It’s a weird dichotomy- the same diagnosis that ruins your confidence and makes you want to disappear also manages to persuade you that you are the entire centre of everything that exists. It simultaneously makes you completely hate yourself, and become an insufferable narcissist in your own head.



I think I’m really pretty good at challenging myself. I force myself into social situations that I don’t want to be in on a fairly regular basis. More importantly, I force myself to social situations that I really do want to be in but am completely effing terrified of. I’ll say yes to parties in London where I basically know no-one at all. I’ll arrange and go to tweet ups. I go to lots of bake clubs, and I’m out of the house on most evenings of the week, seeing various different friends and going to all sorts of different events. I’ll merrily agree to SITP talks here and there. Yet no matter how much I push myself to do things, and no matter how well these things turn out, the fear remains the same.



I know the theory. I know that anxiety is supposed to lessen the more you are in a situation, and the more you are exposed to that situation. Yet mine.. doesn’t. I know that I have been in a similar situation before, and it was absolutely fine, yet I still end up a gibbering wreck each and every time. It’s the self-focus that does that. With my social anxiety, its not the other people who are scary, it’s myself, and that can be really difficult to get around. Its this aspect that makes it refractory to exposure therapy.



One of the most exhausting parts of it is self-censoring. I constantly dismiss my own thoughts as not being worthy enough of being said out loud. I’m scared of sounding stupid, boring, of being judged, of not being interested enough. Instead of allowing the person I am speaking to make those judgements, I do it myself, and discard things that I want to say before they leave my mouth.



These things do not make me an ideal person to perform improvised comedy. I am the person who will eventually come up with a killer comedic line about six hours after the opportunity to use it has gone, then will proceed to beat myself up about it for days, weeks, sometimes months afterwards. I have never performed any sort of drama or anything like that, and the opportunities for creativity in my adult life have been pretty limited.



So, you’re asking, how did it go?



Pretty well I think. I was completely exhausted and nigh-on broken afterwards, but it felt like one of the most productive things I have done so far to subdue my social anxiety monster.



The group of people attending the workshop were warm, welcoming, and kind. Bev, who was leading it, was marvellous. I didn’t feel pushed into anything at any time, though I spent the entire day not just outside my comfort zone but pretty much in another continent to it.



Luckily, my ultimate goal for the workshop fits in quite nicely with one of the fundamental basics of improv- turning off your self-filtering. I didn’t achieve it fully- I still felt pretty shy and reserved by the end of the workshop- but I did take some big steps towards it. I found myself taking part in the games much more enthusiastically than I had expected, and even managed to be funny on the odd occasion.



One of the most beneficial parts was towards the start. As part of a game, one of the guys asked who was nervous about coming today. As dictated by the game, this then led to a mass vacating of seats, followed by a scramble for another one. There followed “who has ever had stage fright”- again, mass movement.



When I found myself stuck in the middle of the circle, I went with the emotionally deep and existentially important question of “Who gets excited when they are about to eat spaghetti hoops?”



There followed a pretty amazing discussion with everyone in the group about their experiences of stage fright and nervousness. They were all so honest, and although I am constantly told that I’m not the only one, it was still good to see that perfectly well-functioning adults still suffer from the stomach-butterflies and brain-freezes just as much as I do.



There were games involving eye contact, which is something that I can sometimes struggle with. There was a really interesting part where you had to walk around in either a high status or a low status mode. It occurred to me as I was doing it that the way I naturally walk, giggle, play with my hair, hunch down etc was pretty much a text book version of the low status walk, whereas high status mode, striding around and holding eye contact with people, I felt really weird and unnatural.



So much of what we covered fits in with what I am covering in therapy. Even the terminology is the same. There was one task where we walked around the room and had to quickly name all the objects. Then we slowed down, and asked more questions about each object in turn, eventually getting to a point where we explored our feelings as well. It reminded me of mindfulness therapy- it was all about being in the moment, rather than rehearsing what might happen in the future or dwelling on what you said five minutes ago.



So it basically felt like an 8 hour long group CBT, mindfulness, and counselling session with a whole load of humour thrown in for good measure. Honestly, I have seen Paul Merton’s Improv Chums three times now and there were moments in this workshop which were just as funny.



I’m not convinced that I am destined for a comedy career, but I have taken a whole load of positivity from that one day, and I’m really pleased and proud of myself for doing it.

You can find out more about the workshops at www.thesuggestibles.com. Bev and Ian's improv group, The Suggestibles, do regular gigs in Newcastle upon Tyne so keep an eye out for a performance if you are in the area- they're a right good laugh, and a blummin' lovely people too.

Hxxx

The importance of a fluffy pen

Many years ago, in my pre-reg year, I was pulled into an office by my tutor and told that I needed to sober up. She didn't mean that in an alcohol sense, but instead that I needed to start being more serious, dour, and less quirky. She told me that my personality, as it was, wasn't right to be a professional.

At the time, I believed her. She told me that I would never make a good pharmacist if I carried on the way I was. I was terrified, as all I wanted to do with my life was to be a pharmacist. If I couldn't be a good one, then I would really need to change my personality.

All of this started because I had a Christmas pen. It played tinny music for an alarmingly long time when pressed, and it became a bit of a joke in the dispensary to sneak up behind me when I was working and set it off, making everyone dissolve into giggles. A dispensing assistant, who was wearing a Christmas tie, was also told off, and strongly advised to not wear it again.

But nowadays, I disagree heartily that you have to be serious to be professional. I think a little bit of well-placed silliness and a lot of humour can add to our professionalism.

We need to be approachable to patients. And what makes a person more approachable than a little bit of personality? Nothing, except perhaps a novelty pen. On a couple of occasions, women who have come to see me about the emergency hormonal contraception pill, and who have been very nervous, have ended up giggling at a ridiculously fluffy pink flamingo pen I used to have. It broke the ice, and they could see that I was a person just like them, and I wasn't going to sit there all business-suited and high and mighty at the other side of the table and judge them. They felt a lot more comfortable because of that pen, and I think I was able to help them a lot more as a result.

At the moment, I have a Special Pen in my desk drawer. It is comedically large, pink, and slightly phallic, with some floppy rubber spikes on the end. I like to take it out of my desk drawer and offer it up, straight-faced, when people ask to borrow a pen.

My current Special Pen. Banana for scale.

We health care professionals deal with a lot of dark stuff on a daily basis: sickness, death, disability, anger, frustration etc. We need to balance that darkness out with something lighter. Whether its doing something daft in the dispensary to make your staff laugh for a few seconds when times are stressful, or donning a fox mask and writing silly things on the internet, it all counts. 

As long as we put the patient first, we treat others with respect, and we work within our limits, true professionalism doesn't have to mean that we all walk about with serious faces.

Hxxx  

The Ultimate Christmas Album for the Existentially Wounded

"It's why, it's why we hang lights so high

and gaze at the glow of silver birches in the snow

Because of the dark, we see the beauty in the spark

We must be alright  if we could make up Christmas night"

-Tracey Thorn, Joy. 

Now, I'll admit that at this time of year, I can get rather annoying.

I love Christmas, I really do. I'm often to be found wearing antlers and tinsel. I put my decorations up at the first opportunity humanely possible, and start on the mince pies in September. This year, I excitedly bought myself a Lego advent calendar, despite the incredulity of the guy behind the counter in the shop. I also have snowman hoodie which yes, I shall wear out in public.

As a child-free, cynical, atheist adult, it might seem like this is a hard time of year to enjoy. And, to be honest, you're probably right. It would be a whole lot easier to throw in the towel and grumble about how commercial it all is, and how I just wish it was over and done with and everything can go back to normal. But I refuse to give into this, and put quite a bit of effort into maintaining my child-like delight at the festive season.

Obviously, its nothing to do with god. And don't get me wrong, I love the presents too (dear parents, if you are reading this, please do take note that I shall never be too old for Lego). But my desperation to enjoy this time of year runs somehow deeper than all that. I don't need to link it to religion, nor do I need to experience it through a child or partner. Christmas reminds me of my own, hard-won personality.

For me, it is about traditions. And these traditions, as they shift and change slightly each year, somehow reinforce my own self to me. Back in what now seems like a lifetime ago, my ex-husband and I took joy in forming new traditions together at this time of year. It was a way of reinforcing ourselves as a couple unit, of forging our own little family ways. Small things, like buying a new special decoration for the tree each year, came to mean a lot to us.

When my marriage broke down on Boxing Day 2010, I had to start again. Everything I had known up until that point fell apart, and my hopes and dreams, which I had been carrying like a shield all my life, shattered in a matter of hours. I had to begin again from scratch, and it was often the smallest of things that seemed to make all the difference to me.

The next year, my new, empty Christmas tree seemed somehow symbolic of how I had to start to collect some traditions of my very own. These traditions would belong to me, and me alone. I started picking up little decorations here and there, and now I have a rather lovely collection of bits and pieces to adorn my home with. And I've done the same with traditions: baking certain things at certain times, (including my beloved Christmas pie), drinking startlingly strong fruit wine in a particular pub on Christmas Eve with my friends, seeing Rare Exports at the cinema, taking part in a gingerbread contest, and many others. Some of us even go so far as to throw ourselves into the freezing North Sea on Boxing Day which not only washes away any vestiges of hangover cobwebs, but also distracts me from the awfully sad memories I would otherwise be thinking about.

Winter is a dark and often terrifying time for many of us. Dark mornings and dark nights make it easy for the sadness and emptiness to creep in. Getting home to a cold, dark, empty, one-bedroomed flat can start to feel like a failure. But then I pop on the tree lights, and I have something to focus on, some little pinpricks of hope that, in the end, the world is full of good people, and I will be able to spend some quality time with those who I love most- my friends and my family. And I will have an excuse to fill my flat with sparkly things, and wear glitter eyeliner.

Christmas is, to me, an acknowledgement that times will be dark and hard ahead, but that I will get through those times, with the help of those around me. It reminds me of how far I've come, and how proud I am of myself. It reminds me of all the good I have found in the world, of all the little bits of help I have gotten from the most unexpected sources, of all the new people I have met and the pride I have in my oldest friendships. If humankind has the presence of mind to plonk a huge celebration in the middle of the darkest season (even if they have done so on the pretence of a god I don't believe in), then that's fine by me, and I shall do my damnedest to make sure I embrace it with gusto.

I love the standard Christmas songs. I'll dance about to a bit of Slade with the best of them. But the saccharine jingle bells of most of the tunes you'll find on Now Thats What I Call The Ultimate Best Ever Christmas Tunes In World... Vol 3 don't seem to quite catch the nuances of the festive season for me. I've only come across a few songs which do, and I have collected them here for your auditory pleasure. I'm keen to know of more, so if you have any you would like to recommend, please do let me know, either in the comments, by email, or by tweeting me (@SparkleWildfire). What I would like to do is create a playlist of genuinely good, beautiful songs that evoke both the joy and the darkness of Christmas.

Joy by Tracey Thorn.
Tracey Thorn's (of Everything But The Girl fame) Christmas album Tinsel and Lights, which she released last year, was a total revelation to me. Its a gorgeous, calming album which hits just the right pitch of melancholy and joy for this time of year. I think this song says it all really.

Snowglobe by Dean Owens.
I saw Dean play at the Tyneside Cinema just before that fateful christmas of 2010. This is a lovely, sad little song about having depression or mental health issues over Christmas time. It serves as a reminder that mental health issues don't instantaneously resolve over the festive period, and that this time of enforced happiness can be extremely hard for many.

December Will Be Magic Again by Kate Bush
You may already know by now that I absolutely adore Kate Bush. Even the title of this song is poignant. This song has the same theme to me as Joy: its about using tradition to cover the darkness of the winter.

Winter by John Smith
This is simply the best, most beautiful song about the baby Jesus that I have ever heard. I first saw John play as support for John Martyn, and I have since seen him live several times and been reduced to tears by him. I absolutely adore his voice. I don't mind that this is a song about the nativity: to me it is a song about a story, and I just love how plaintively he sings that "I was there" line.

A Christmas Fable by The Selecter
I love a bit of ska. I've spent a full day agonising over which song to go for from this single. Then it occurs to me: its a double A-side, so I can legitimately have both. The songs are supposed to symbolise the light and dark sides of christmas, so they're pretty perfect for my playlist. Skank 'Til Christmas is all about letting your hair down when everything else in life has gone to shit (I love the references to the current financial situation), whilst a Christmas Fable is about a rather distressing family breakdown on Christmas day.

River by Madeleine Peyroux & K.D. Lang
A cover of this track also appears on the aforementioned Tinsel and Lights album. Thanks to the ever marvellous Ian Robinson (@eyeswideshut75) for suggesting it.

White Wine in the Sun by Tim Minchin
Thanks to Steve Haigh for reminding me of this. There's so much truth and humour in this gorgeous little tune, and it really sums up a good old family Christmas.

The Atheist Christmas Carol by Vienna Teng
This is just gorgeous.Thanks to Jackie (@Jackpot73- one of those new people so I am so thankful for having met this year) for

Silent Night/ 7 O'clock News by Simon and Garfunkel
Pretty self explanatory.

Love is All We've Got by Paul Fisher
I have loved Paul's music since the first time I saw him at a folk night when I was still underage drinking. I can remember being completely astounded by the noises that were coming out of this guy on the tiny stage upstairs in the Egypt Cottage pub. Turns out he has made a beautiful, gorgeous, poignant Christmas song this year which I will be listening to over and over.

Candle Song 3 by Mojave 3.

Tar Barrel in Dale by Rachel Unthank and the Winterset
Another one suggested by the lovely Jackie. A New Year's song about a Northumberland tradition. This year has been so cruel to so many of my friends and people I know, so I listen to this hoping that the new one brings those who I love some luck.

Hxxx

P.S. Here's my Sparkle Wildfire Top Festive Tip for the year: mulled wine liquid soap might seem like a good idea in the shop, but its really not. You end up smelling like a wino.

So this one's for the friends

"So this one's for the friends

If not so for themselves

And this new life's directing us

Remind us in a town

You made us feel at home

We broke our backs on floors of stone

But I'd rather wake there any day

Than wake up here alone"

-The Chronicles of a Bohemian Teenager, Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly

Today is World Mental Health Day. although this year the focus is on older people, I am in a nazel-gazing, emotional kind of a mood, and have found myself thinking a lot about my friends.

There are two aspects to this. Firstly, I know a lot of people with varying degrees of mental health problems. In fact, I would say that I probably know more people with some sort of mental health problem than those who don't. I find myself thinking of how much I wish I could change how they feel, draw out some of their pain or anxiety or depression for them and lighten their lives a little bit. I think of how wonderful and individual they are, and how amazingly brave and strong they are. The reasons for their problems are as diverse as they are- if there are reasons. I think of how badly they are treated by others, of the stereotypes that are applied to them, and want to shout from the rooftops about how wonderful all of these people are.

The other aspect is how my friends treat me. Its not big, sentimental gestures, nor is it anything to do with the length of time I have known someone. Its the bunch of flowers and bottle of wine that arrived in the post a few days after my marriage broke down. Its lending me an oil-filled radiator when the heating in my flat has broken and fixing my DVD player. Its letting me sit on the sofa in their house in silence because I don't feel like speaking but I don't want to be on my own. Its the rushing round to my flat to remove a spider because I'm too scared to do it myself. Its the constant sarcasm and good-natured banter at work. Its the tweeps who always cheer me up and check how I am when I am in a self-pitying mood, and the patient soothing of my drunken self via WhatsApp at 3am. Its the afternoons of laughter and the knowledge that, if I need to cry hysterically I could, and no one would think any worse of me. Its the quiet, unthinking hug when I am struggling to smile during someone's wedding, or the amazing poem written for my birthday.

These are the sort of things that I have built into my little emotional fortress. There are people out there who can't understand where I derive meaning from in life- I have no god, no children and no husband after all. But all of these little gestures, and all of these wonderful people form the basis of my meaning. Without them, I really don't know where I would be, but I'm pretty sure it would be an awfully dark place. This, for me, is the foundation of my humanism.

I don't tell my friends this kind of thing enough, but I'm so thankful and lucky to have them.

Hxxx

CBT session one

So last Friday I began a course of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy sessions, to help me deal with the social anxiety that I talked about in a previous blog post.

I don't really expect to learn anything new from the course, to be honest. I'm pretty good at accepting, rationalising and challenging myself to face my fears, but what I'm finding more and more lately is that I reach breaking point more easily. I've always been able to keep the anxiety in check and have always just thought that I am shy, but various things- the bout of psoriasis I had, being single again, stuff happening with my friends etc has meant that I've been much less able to control it of late. So much of my brain is taken up by being anxious that there is little left over for anything else. My organization skills, which were poor at best anyway, are completely shot, and even the most basic problems at work leave me feeling totally overwhelmed.

My friends are my world, and its hard for me to describe how much I love them and how much I love spending time with them. Since my divorce, when they rallied round and were totally amazing, I have made sure that they are the centre of everything I do. But this thing is getting in the way of that, and its making me miserable as a consequence.

The best way I can think to describe it is like an energy bar in a computer game, but instead of life force, mine is a social bar. It gradually decreases, then eventually I run out and require recharging. In more stressful situations (like going to parties or meetings where I know no-one, or-horror of all horrors- dating, for example) it runs out a lot quicker than if I am spending time with by best friends. The recharging usually involves lying on my sofa watching old episodes of Dexter and not talking to anyone, although lately I've noticed a much more scary emptiness creeping in, and I can find myself lying on my bed staring at the ceiling with no thoughts or feelings or emotions at all. These hours are terrifying and are something that has never really happened to me before. 

So, having seen my GP, I got referred onto this group CBT course. The irony of being on a group course for social anxiety has not escaped me, and of course I found myself worrying about all aspects of the course. How will I get the time off work? Will I find the place? (this sort of anxiety stems from a fear of looking stupid if I don't know where I'm going) Will I have to make awkward small talk with the other people on the course? Will they think that my reasons for going are stupid? What if I have to speak about my emotions to them? etc etc etc. One of my biggest worries is whether I was bad enough to justify being on the course. The fact that I have spent several days if not weeks worrying about whether I am anxious enough to justify it has also tickled my sense of irony.

Anyway, I managed to find the place, and staggered in red-faced, dry mouthed, sweaty and with my heart beating (irregularly) out of my chest. The other folk in the waiting room looked serene and at home. The course started late due to technical problems, which rather than giving me time to calm down made me even worse.

Once I was in there, I felt somewhat better. The initial session is all about the causes and symptoms of anxiety and how it can manifest in different people, so we didn't really cover any CBT techniques. I was very pleased to hear the trainers talking about the evidence base for CBT, and they explained the pros and cons and process of what we would be doing over the next few weeks. I was starting to feel quite settled. It was nothing I didn't know already, of course, but its always good to know that there are other people suffering from the same thing as you.

Then came the two slides on medication. The slides just covered some really general points which I agreed with, but one of the women there talked about how she didn't want to try any medication as she was so worried about side effects. The trainers said they knew very little about specific medicines, and she should speak to her GP or pharmacist. Well, I tried to keep my mouth shut, I really did, but I couldn't help myself. I thought about just trying to make out like I was someone who knew a bit about medicines, but I could tell that this woman was really worried. She was wanting to try an antidepressant, and thought it could benefit her in the short term, but she was really concerned that they could amplify her anxiety permanently. I wanted to help and reassure her, and before I knew it, I could hear myself saying "I'm a pharmacist..." I explained a bit about how the drugs work, what sort of side effects could happen, and what the sort of terms used to describe how common a side effect is actually mean. She, the other attendees, and the trainers all listened attentively and said how great it was to have it all explained in context rather than to just look at a really long list of scary words on a patient information leaflet.

I left feeling happy that I had shared some of my expertise, but sort of worried about the rest of the course. I fully expect next week to walk in and be asked various different questions about the medicines people are taking. You get used to this happening when you tell people that you're a pharmacist. The problem comes from the fact that now I feel like I need to be "on", and in professional mode, when what I actually sort of want is a place that I can switch off my forcefield and fall apart, so I can put myself back together in a more rational, calmer way.

Hxxx

Common Community Pharmacy Annoyances

It's funny how variable working in a community pharmacy can be. Nowadays, I locum here and there, and I tend to really enjoy it. I usually do evening shifts, so you have an hour or two of bedlam, followed by several hours of blissful calm and quiet, where you get to sort out all the outstanding things, do lots of other bits and pieces like checking owings, controlled drug stock levels, and cleaning. I usually also end up having bizarrely deep and meaningful conversations about life, love and philosophy with whoever I am working with. Usually when I leave a pharmacy it is as clean and tidy as possible, I've sorted out what I can, and have left notes for anything that I haven't been able to deal with fully.

I say all this because I lately did one of *those* locum shifts. The ones where it is constantly busy, no prescription is straightforward, the fax machine isn't working, and you seem to have to deal with every problem under the sun. On this particular locum shift, I think my colleagues and I encountered every single type of category of impolite customer possible in a 4 hour shift.

So, because the only way that we can cope with such things is to laugh about them, and because I fancy a self-indulgent rant, here is my compilation of the things in pharmacy that annoy me and that happened in that locum shift.

The Mythical Taxi
Some people do get a taxi to their local supermarket. I have done it myself. But it would appear that taxi companies must have an amazingly lucrative trade in ferrying people to and from pharmacies if the frequency of use of the phrase "Can you do it quickly please, I've got a taxi waiting" is anything to go by. These are not, as far as I am aware, magic words that will somehow warp the time-space continuum so that I am able to dispense and check a twenty item prescription in a mere matter of seconds. Whether or not you actually have a taxi waiting will simply mean that your prescription gets put in the queue in the same place it would have done anyway, and you will wait the same amount of time as you would have done anyway. Needless to say, I suspect that many of these taxis don't actually exist, but merely a tactic used by some people to attempt to "hurry their prescriptions along".

The Dry Chesty Cough
"What sort of a cough is it?" "Well, its a dry, chesty cough."
No, no it isn't. It's either dry or its chesty, its not both. And either way, there is little point buying anything for it given that there is no evidence that any cough medicines work.

The Evil Eyes
Glaring at me continuously for the entire time that I am dispensing your prescription will not in any way speed up my work, and in fact may have the opposite effect as I am more likely to lumber around in a sloth-like manner just to annoy.

"I Need To Be Somewhere"
At 6:05pm, a woman handed in her prescription of 4 items. At 6:07pm, having spent all of two minutes repeatedly sighing and tapping her feet, she asked to speak to the pharmacist. Off I went, leaving a prescription half-dispensed. She demanded to know how long her prescription was going to be (the one I left to go and speak to her), because she needed to be somewhere. I gave her an estimation, told her I was doing it now, then went off to complete it. She then asked to speak to me a further three times to find out how long it was going to be, each time meaning it would take a little longer. "But I need to be somewhere at 6:15!!" she told me each time. I handed her the prescription at 6:12pm, thanking her for her patience. She then proceeded to rant for several minutes about how long the prescription had taken and how it meant she was going to be late and she had to be somewhere at 6:15. She eventually stopped complaining at exactly 6.15, and I returned to the dispensary, whereupon I noticed out of the corner of my eye that she had taken the time to hang around to complain about how long it had taken her to get her prescription to some of her friends who she just happened to bump into in the shop. Goodness only knows what time she actually left.

Invading Privacy
If you have ever picked up a prescription from a pharmacy, you will have probably been asked to confirm your address. This is so that we can make sure that you actually get the correct prescription. This is not because we are evil assassins or because we want to sit in a bush outside your house and spy on you- we really don't- and you're address is written on the prescription so if we wanted to we could anyway. On this locum shift, however, we were accused of invading someone's privacy for asking for this information. "I don't need to give you that information!" he declared. The counter assistant advised him that this is a routine question to ensure that we give out the correct prescription. But this wasn't good enough, and he wanted to speak to someone in charge. Off I went into the breach. I told him that he could come into the consultation room to give us his address so no one could overhear, but this was "an inconvenience", apparently.

By this time, he was shouting and other people in the queue were staring at him.

Again, I advised that we routinely confirm the address to ensure that the correct prescription is given out.

He decided to prove that the prescription was his instead by giving out his name, date of birth, and by telling me every item that was on the script. Loudly. One of which was sildenafil (Viagra).

Magicking Up Medicine
Me: "I'm sorry, we don't have that item in stock. There is a manufacturing problem on it, so we can't get it from our suppliers"
Patient: "But I need it"
Me (in head): "Oh I see. Well if you can hold on a few minutes, I'll just nip round the back into our large pharmaceutical manufacturing factory, dig out the raw materials, and whip you up a batch right now then"
Me (in real-life): "I understand, but I'm really sorry, we can't get any in at the moment."
Patient: "But I need it."
Me: "Where is the nearest wall please, so that I can bash my head against it repeatedly?"

The Expert Customer
I'm advising a patient about how to manage their child's teething problems. Another customer waiting in the queue decides to chip in with "Those Nelsons Teetha sachets are really good." (Nelsons Teetha sachets are homeopathic, therefore contain nothing of use and have no pharmacological effect). From then on, I (and my many years of training and experience) might as well not exist, as nothing I say can steer the patient away from believing that Nelsons Teetha are simply THE best thing since sliced bread, and in her eyes I'm obviously a terrible pharmacist for not recommending them immediately.

Impatient Patient Questioning
You ask the patient all the usual questions. They're all answered with a loud sigh, vacant eyes, and a disinterested "yes" or "no" at all the bits that they think are right. I could be asking anything, and I'd get the same response. So sometimes, I like to mix it up a bit and throw in a question they're not expecting. If its something like Nytol or a codeine containing medicine, I'll ask "Do you take it regularly?" to which the response is usually a bored yes. In which case, I advise them that I can't sell them any, then swiftly duck for cover when they inevitably throw things at me.

A variant You ask the patient if they are taking any other medications, to which they sigh and say "no". It's only when they're about to hand over their money that they a) ask what would happen if they were taking medicines, then confess, or b) whip out an inhaler and proceed to take a couple of puffs right in front of you after they have just told you that they don't have asthma or COPD.

Specifics
The patient can inexplicably only take one or two brands of generics for a product. You are, of course, expected to telepathically know this and dispense the right one, and woe betide anyone who doesn't. Now, I am entirely understanding of cases where a patient has specific requirements for one type of product- maybe an allergy to an excipient, say. But when there is not reason for it, and the patient is shouting at you for not giving them "the right medicine" despite them at no point telling you what "the right" one is, then I tend to feel a bit put out.

Mobile Misery
Now I am known for being attached to my mobile phone. However, one of the most annoying things when working in retail is having to deal with customers who refuse to hang up theirs whilst you are trying to have a conversation with them. Over a pharmacy counter, we often need to give detailed counselling, and of course we need to ask a lot of questions. I can't really do that if you are also listening to so-and-so discussing who was drunkest down the pub the other night. At this particular locum shift, I had to attempt to explain that there was an item owing on a prescription to a chap who was having just such a conversation. The icing on the cake was when he said to his phone-based friend "Hang on, I can't hear you, this stupid woman keeps talking about something and wont give me my prescription". Needless to say, despite me explaining the owing and handing him an owing slip, he returned a few minutes later demanding to know where the missing item was. This "stupid woman" then had to patiently and politely re-explain everything I had already told him.

How do I deal with situations like this? Politely, professionally, and with a smile on my face. I might have a bit of a rant and a laugh about it later in the back of the pharmacy, but outwardly in these situations I remain as calm as possible and attempt to be as helpful as I can. I've had many years of practice. The worst thing about this shift was that I was working with a new counter assistant and a newly qualified pharmacist, and I could see their morale slipping minute by minute. Their shoulders slumped, their smiles became more forced, and I found myself desperately trying to reassure them that this is just how some days go. Of course, we pharmacy types do make mistakes on occasion, and inconveniences do happen. I can understand that, when it comes to health, people can be scared and anxious, and that can come across as aggression. It is my firm belief, however, that a little bit of kindness and manners get you everywhere, and I am always much more likely to respond positively to calm and polite customers than those who default to outright rudeness, although I will do what I can to ensure that I help them all.

Hxxx

Is Gareth Bale worth more than eradicating malaria?

Many moons ago, in what now feels like a different life, I went on a trip to London. The date was October 12th, 2009, and I was armed with a long pole, a dispensing basket I had nicked from work, and a mosquito net.

I had an hour. An hour, to do whatever I wanted, in Central London. Its not particularly unusual to have an hour to kill in the capital, but it just so happened that I would be spending this hour atop the Fourth Plinth in a moonlit Trafalgar Square. I had been lucky enough to have been selected to take part in Anthony Gormley's One & Other artwork. I decided, after much deliberation, to represent the Malaria No More charity. I gave out packs of sweets and leaflets about the cause, wore a dress made of a mosquito net, and even did a little bit of crafting, sewing the words Malaria No More onto a large blue mosquito net. Mostly, I felt utterly terrified, and had horrendous stage fright, more so than I had ever imagined I would have.

Malaria No More, amongst other things, aim to distribute insecticide-treated bed nets (ITNs), eventually with a view to eradicate malaria entirely. According to them:

"£10 can transport 150 life-saving nets to a community in rural Ghana; enough to protect 300 people."

 Blimey, that sounds far too good to be true, doesn't it? But luckily, there is good, robust, independent evidence that impregnated mosquito nets really do prevent deaths from malaria:

"About 5.5 lives (95% CI 3.39 to 7.67) can be saved each year for every 1000 children protected with ITNs...ITNs are highly effective in reducing childhood mortality and morbidity from malaria. Widespread access to ITNs is currently being advocated by Roll Back Malaria, but universal deployment will require major financial, technical, and operational inputs.." -Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2000;(2):CD000363.

So the idea is that two people can sleep under one net, but because of the insecticide, there is an area outside the nets which is also protected. If there are enough nets in a household, or even a village, then the whole area could be protected, even when people are out and about and not just when they are sleeping under the net. The available evidence seems to back this up-the little extract I have copied above only refers to deaths, but the results are even better when it comes to reducing the incidence of malaria illness- a reduction of 62% in areas of unstable malaria, for example.

This got me thinking a bit. With the news today that Gareth Bale, a man that I have never heard of, who runs about on a bit of grass after an inflatable round thing is apparently worth a record £85.3 million, I can't help but do some little calculations. Obviously these are all estimates, but it makes for an interesting thought experiment.

• £10= 150 mosquito nets

• £85,300,000/10=8,530,000 mosquito nets

• As each of those 8,530,000 nets can protect two people= 17,060,000 people could be protected.

• 5.5 lives can be saved for every 1000 children protected with ITNs. If we assume all the people protected are children:
• 17,060,000/1000= 17,060
• 17.060*5.5=93,830 children could be saved.

The WHO estimates that there were 660 000 malaria deaths in 2010. So that amount of mosquito nets, could, in actual fact, prevent a large chunk of those deaths (we dont know how many adult deaths it could prevent, either) meaning that over a few years, malaria could potentially be eradicated.

Now, I'm sure this Bale chap is very good and all, but I do wonder whether, in the context of all the World's problems, this sort of amount is appropriate. Personally, I would rather opt for reducing the massive morbidity and mortality caused by a disease that is potentially eradicable given the right resources, but then what do I know?

Before anyone complains, yes I know this is terribly simplistic, and its not as easy as that, and all of that sort of hoohah. I just want to make a bit of a point about how vast sums of money need a context, and in my humble opinion, I don't think it is particularly appropriate or such sums to exchange hands when there are still people dying of hunger or preventable diseases.  I'm sure some men doing footballing makes some people happy and all, but come on. I'm not even convinced that Christian Bale is worth that much, despite that scene of him running around naked, bloodstained, and with chainsaw in hand in American Pyscho.

Hxxx

The difference of a diagnosis.

I have Social Anxiety Disorder. Its all official and everything, having just come back from the doctors' surgery, where all of my rehearsed, clear and concise explanations of how I have been feeling lately descended into some soggy, disordered sentences and lots of apologies. 

What, precisely does this mean? It means I feel weird, and I don't quite know what to do with myself. It's interesting, the effect of having a label. I imagine this particular effect is broadly similar for many diagnoses, to lesser and greater degrees. It's a waveform: you just start relaxing into it, and feeling relived by it, then you think 'oh shit, there's something wrong with me!', then it all starts again.

There is a satisfying feeling of loose ends being tied up. It's the explanatory scene at the end of every episode of Poirot, the metaphorical jigsaw pieces being placed. You think of all the things that you've been feeling over the years and you squidge all of your individual experiences into the shape of the words on the leaflet you've been given.

But its weirdly hard to relinquish the long-held belief that actually you're just quite shit at life, that its your own fault and you're just not trying hard enough, to something external like an Actual Real Life Diagnosis. Bits of what I thought were my personality are instantly explained and I can't quite accept that its not just me being defective.

There is also a fear that now I have an excuse, a reason to stop berating myself, I will luxuriate in it. Will I kick back and stop pushing myself as much as I have been, and retreat? Will it take even more effort now to venture out and smile, with a diagnosis weighing me down?

People who know me may be inclined to think that this is bollocks, that I'm just going through a rough patch and will be fine in a bit. I keep telling myself that too, to be honest. I'll shake it off and it'll be fine. but this is an underlying thing that has always been there. Most of the time it lurks, but sometimes it pushes itself into the front row, knocks out the bouncers, and jumps on the stage and dances naked. In other words, its pretty damn distracting, and it takes up a fair amount of my working brain. 

There are a few cruel dichotomies that I am the victim of in life. I love nothing more than lying for hours in the sunshine, yet I have the palest, most prone to burning skin, for example. And this is one too. I love being around people. I love my friends more than anything, and I rely on them for my very existence. But this thing, this bloody diagnosis, means I can end up spending the precious time I have with them fighting with my instincts to run away from them, even though I desperately want to be with them.

You could be the one person who I want to spend the most amount of time with in the world. You could be the person that I am most interested in getting to know, or the person who I most want to impress. I might be really interested in your opinions, and desperately want to know about your life. But what will most likely happen is that I will sit in awkward silence and you will think "she hates me", or "she's not remotely sociable" or "bloody hell, she's really boring". If only you could hear the things running through my head at these times though. In my brain, I am running through all of my most sparkling, wittiest, intelligent observations and quietly discarding every one of them as being too unworthy of your consideration. Yeah, I know I should let you judge that, and I think about it constantly afterwards and how stupid I have been for not saying anything, but in the moment, none of those rational thoughts help. Conversely, you could be someone who I know I will never meet again. You could be a random person on the street who asks me directions, or a train conductor, or a waitress in a restaurant I will never visit again, and I will still have the same reactions.

I can often mask it, but my body lets me down. I can be sat having a nice chat with someone I have been friends with for years, and I am internally in full on fight-or-flight mode. My heart is pounding irregularly, my brain is rushing and I blush extravagantly. If this is how I am with people who I know love me, and who I have known for years, imagine how I am when I meet new people.

Some of you might be thinking 'why in the hell is she writing about this in public?' Some would say that this is the kind of thing that should be kept under wraps, behind closed doors, under the carpet and all that kind of thing. Well, I say bollocks to that. I have written before about how stubborn the stigma of mental health is, and I just don't subscribe to the idea that we still, in this day and age, need to be embarrassed about it. It's actually really hard and scary to write about it all in public, but it makes me feel better and I don't want to hide it away. I have enough faith in you, Dear Reader, that you wont think any less of me for it or judge me too much. 

Hxxx

I ain't afraid of no ghosts... oh hang on...

"Girls, come over here. You'll be safe from the evil spirit on this side of the vault. A lady came in today and blessed it- you can see how she left healing flowers as part of the ritual."

This sentence would appear at first glance to be the sort of thing that would send me into an apoplectic rage. There is so much woo encapsulated in that one little sentence: ghosts (which don't exist), sexism (the men were left on the un-blessed side), god (who doesn't exist) healing flowers (medicinal woo) and rituals (spiritual nonsense which makes no difference).

However, standing in the pitch black, musty cold of one of Edinburgh's vaults, clinging onto my friend Hesther and a complete stranger for dear life, I found myself repeating in my head 'its alright, I'm safe. A lady has been in and blessed it. Nothing bad is going to happen' over and over again in a desperate and unsuccessful bid to stave off hysteria.

This was just over a year ago. Every year, my friends and I take a trip over the border to take in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. In amongst the sight-seeing, drinking, burning of the candle at both ends, and stand-up comedy binging, we always tend to do something ghostie-related. Edinburgh is a very charismatically historical and spooky city. The first year, we went to Mary King's Close, then last year was a vaults tour. Each time, I have shown myself up as a pathetic, borderline hysterical scaredy-cat.

In another vault during last year's tour, we were told how a coven of Wiccan witches had tried to use a particular vault as a meeting room (I suspect meeting room isn't the correct terminology, to be honest, but never mind.). They had moved some stones to form a protective circle in the middle of the vault, but found that terrible things happened when they were inside the circle, including the appearance of a terrifying, animalistic evil demon which trapped them in the vault, stalking the corridor murderously so they couldn't get out. The tour guide very dramatically informed us of how no one had set foot inside the circle in her presence, but how she would leave us alone for a while and we could do so if we wished, before swooping out theatrically. Now, you and I know that this was just a room, and a tourist putting a toe into a circle of inert stones is not going to make a non-existent demon turn up.

However, as one chap went to put his foot within the circle, an inhuman sound emanated from the corner of the vault. It could only be described as a guttural shriek, and went something like:

"DONTEVENFUCKINGDAREORIWILLKILLYOUWITHMYBAREHANDS"

Something like that, anyway. I can't quire remember the exact words I used. Here I was, an atheist who believes firmly in science, screeching violent threats at a complete stranger all because he had moved his foot vaguely in the direction of the stone circle. I was, to say the least, utterly terrified, and it was only after a good few vodkas in the bar afterwards that I started to calm down.

But this was before I started to get really interested and involved in skepticism. I've since found myself being a whole lot more rational about many aspects of my life, and applying skeptical principles, critical thinking, and rationality has become a lot more second nature to me. This year's tour, which took in some supposedly more active vaults, as well as a graveyard and mausoleum, home of Edinburgh's most active and evil poltergeist, would be a breeze. After all, I would be able to calmly rationalise all aspects of it and see it for what it really is: pure entertainment. Skeptical pharmacist extraordinaire that I am, I would be serenely smirking at all of my friends and the rest of the tour group as they clung onto one another and shrieked.

Umm, well...

As it happened, I was marginally less hysterical than last time. I would love to say that this was due to my skepticism, but in actual fact is due to the fact that there was a bigger group of people, the tour guide was more comedic than dramatic, and that I had imbibed some gin beforehand.  But I do mean marginally. I was still clinging onto whoever was near me for comfort, (whimpering "don't leave me, please don't leave me"). I used up the last vestiges of my phone's battery for light because I was so terrified of the darkness. In the graveyard, I was telling myself that ghosts were less powerful in the open air, rather than that ghosts do not exist. In the mausoleum, I consoled myself with the fact that the Mackenzie poltergeist would probably like me because I'm an atheist and not a catholic, rather than that it is merely a tall tale made up to appease tourists and that there was a perfectly rational explanation for everything. Barely a rational thought crossed my mind for the whole sodding one and a half hours of the tour. 

It would seem then, based on this n=1 social experiment, that one is perfectly able to be paralyzingly frightened of something that you don't believe in, given the right circumstances. In the dark, having to listen to stories of ghostly hands grabbing at ankles, i can confirm that there is a minority part of my brain that not only takes over the rational, skeptical majority, but beats it into a pulpy submission then stamps on it repeatedly.

Hxxx

P.S. Spirits almost definitely did have something to do with the fact that I randomly fell over just before the tour even started.