Have done quite a bit recently. Got a bike, and been on a bike ride (pictures) as well as starting back at school. Had difficulties getting online there, although the networking and IT support is fantastic. I think that is mainly due to the fact that I'm running debian on powerpc, a unique minority amongst computer users at the school - and probably on a wider basis than that as well.

I gave a talk yesterday on congenital diaphragmatic hernia to an audience in the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Brighton. The meeting was to discuss the possibilities of restarting a paediatric surgical service for neonates with this problem, as paediatric surgical and neonatal services have recently both started operating on the same site.

"I love the life I live, and I live the life I love"

"I love the life I live, and I live the life I love"

The music floats over the rooftops on this sunny Saturday afternoon. It woke me up - I'm working nights - but that's kool, it's relaxed. I had a good days sleep and am feeling refreshed; the sun is out and I've plenty to do: the kind of things that I've been putting off for a long time.

Yeah, I'm doing more of this... why? Well, I guess it's not so useful to anyone else, but doing 3x5 cards just isn't cutting it for me for some of the finer details - and there's some wonderful stuff that needs to be shared! Like, for example, reading in bed last night (what, Saturday night?!) I discovered that Golgi was a prolific Italian histologist who did more than just have a few bits of the cell name after him (Golgi Apparatus) - he had multiple parts of the body and various other things named after him, including part of the malarial life cycle! Anyway, I digress. Onto today's wonders...

Yep, revising again. These are some notes for today...

Learning interesting things by revising for the USMLE... Here are some (random) notes that I'm taking down whilst going over questions again.

House-sitting a flat in the city, large garden with grass and trees and railway at the end, it's a good place to sit and work during the day. Added bonus are the 3 eggs daily provided by my companions, the chickens. Well, was meant to be: was shown how to retrieve the eggs from within the "egg-loo" - essentially a chicken coop, allegedly designed and marketed by a company called OmLet who come and install it for you - on the first day by my friend (a relative of the owner)... returned into the apartment and back to the light (it was night outside) to discover his arm was alive with crawling things: very small, who knows what? Well, we figured that out quickly when we found a tube of "Red mite powder" on a shelf . Red mites? They're only little, but vicious, apparently - google returns a very informative pdf which explains that they are also known as Dermanyssus gallinae, a renowned chicken parasite that is seemingly impossible to eradicate and infects chicken farms (and other birds) throughout the country.

These are some notes (along with images) taken from various sites for revision purposes. The image above shows single electrocardiographic complexes comparing (left) acute pericarditis, (center) early repolarization and (right) injury pattern of acute myocardial infarction. Note the degree of ST-segment elevation is greater in the pericarditis complex than in the early repolarization complex. Important findings of acute infarction include the presence of Q waves and a more convex upward ST segment, both of which are present in the right complex.

For additional points, what does the attached

Made chilli mango chicken last night. Actually, chilli-mango-fruit-chicken, but i'll come to that, the recipe was pretty straightforward (with some bite!) and easily applicable to pretty much any food stuff of substance - vegetables, meat, pulses possibly ...

Easy. Garlic, ginger, red and green chili peppers, groundnut oil (I would have used a little peanut oil, too, if we had any) and, of course, mango. Fry it up and just keep on adding more fresh mango to the mixture as it cooks, then eventually add a bit of water to fluff it up and make it into more of a sauce. That's it (almost)! Only the embellishment to come....