While generally in life you get what you pay for, there are rare instances when the reverse is true. Since their launch I've been fairly regularly checking out the free Single of the Week on the iTunes Music Store (UK and NZ editions). A 30 second preview is enough to decide if it's worth a download or not, and I have discovered some real gems from artists I hadn't previously heard of. Here are the "keepers" from my Freebies playlist; I hope you find something that tickles your fancy too.
Continue reading 'iTunes freebies are worth checking out'
Archive for the 'Musings' category
Welcoming in a New Year is as good a time as any for reflection. Rather than make traditional resolutions or goals (I've done my fair share of reflection recently), I've decided to focus briefly on a single but not insignificant issue: survival. All life wants to survive (unless it's ill), because that is its common purpose. Some human lives are more concerned with saving certain other lives (human, animal, plant) or, more generally, saving the planet. Does the planet need "saving", or do we?
Continue reading 'Saving Miss Daisy'
The week just gone marked 15 years in medicine. Two of those years were spent in New Zealand, the rest in England, and the last 10 in general (family) practice. It also marked the end of my clinical career—I'm hanging up the stethoscope and starting down a new path. I don't yet know where that path begins, let alone where it leads. But it's something I have to do.
Continue reading 'Hanging up the stethoscope'
Baby-brained Lynn—a reference to present uterine cf. cerebral capacity—has tagged me to propagate a blog meme.
Continue reading 'A meme of eight random things'
We took a couple of days between Anzac Day and the weekend to make a short holiday on the Wanganui River. At the place we stayed we were presented with meals that were impossibly huge, a diet that would super-size us in no time. In 2002-2003 one in three adult New Zealanders was overweight (excludes obese) and one in five adults was obese (MOH). Some people are quick to ascribe their weight problem (if they identify it as such) to extrinsic factors, such as genetics, time or financial constraints, marketing, or poor social support. However you rationalise it, being overweight or obese comes down to simple mathematics. The only certainty among all the theories is that energy and mass are interchangeable.
Continue reading 'Obesity arithmetic'
One zero is a very short (~1100 words) piece of creative writing introducing a world view based on binary code (Matrix inspired I guess). Originally the prelude to a short story I planned to write, it's sat on my hard drive untouched for the past 3 years (although the first words were written sometime earlier). As a full story it will never see the light of day, so I present it here for your consumption. Does it stir anything in you? Do I have any potential as a writer of fiction (or what needs to improve)? Where would it take you if you were to write the next 1000 words?
Continue reading 'One zero'
