Surgery - the aftermath

I’m really glad to be back home after Wednesday’s surgery at Beirut’s American University Hospital (AUH).

Don’t misunderstand, the hospital staff, all Lebanese, were wonderful. Food appeared at regular intervals. A succession of nurses wrote their names and drew smiley faces on a strategically placed white board and insisted on pouring pain medication into me at regular intervals. I was interviewed on my experience by the head of nursing, the head of administration, a team of no less than six surgical residents (at least I think that’s what they were, sincere apologies if I have their titles wrong). The only problem was that my best thing had become sleeping; I’d suddenly got very good at it, dropping off without warning anywhere, anytime, probably because of all the pain killers! So my main experience was the bed and my major problem staying awake.

Topics of conversation were basic and limited. The sort of questions you’d hesitate to ask yourself in the privacy of your own bathroom had suddenly become subjects for group discussion. Normal rules of modesty and decorum had flown out of the window. “Do you mind if I shave you now, or would you rather wait until you’ve been anaesthetised?” my face was not in the equation, so I decided to watch and at least feel some semblance of control over the process. Some chaps, it seems, get quite exercised over the loss of body hair and can only be “done” when safely unconscious!

Strange it is then that in spite of having a veritable army of highly trained carers able to approach the most sensitive of topics with a disarming mixture of empathy and unconcern, I’m glad to be home in spite of all the problems posed. Problems? Well it’s amazing what we take for granted in daily life – the bed was too low for me to get back out of without assistance, so I spent the first night back home on a recliner – a friend once congratulated us on our swimming pool when seeing the master bathroom, but the sides assumed Everest proportions for a day or so; as for getting in and out of the car, well it’s just as well I can dial out the sound of horns honking.

I am under strict instructions to avoid driving and stairs for a week (especially at the same time, presumably!), and then not to cough, nor lift heavy weights nor take any exercise other than walking for six weeks. I’m not supposed to sneeze either, but have no idea how to stop that happening, oh and I have to watch what I eat but since the visual appeal of food is important to me, I always do that!.

Time to finish, I feel another snooze coming on, but at least I can choose now, the bed or the chair – that’s the main difficulty in being back home, all those decisions!

Surgery? - It's just routine!

On Wednesday I go under the surgeon’s knife.

“Don’t worry, a hernia is a very common problem in men, putting it right is a routine operation with a 96% probability of success,” intoned the instantly likeable fellow whom I’ve chosen to fillet me and stitch me back together again.

Now that sentence really needs some close examination. Routine. ROUTINE!! No it jolly well isn’t. Routine is having a cup of tea on waking each morning, routine is going to the supermarket once a week, routine is changing the bed sheets regularly, historians suggest that the Elizabethan habit of taking a bath twice a year was routine even if it was more regular than frequent. But injecting me with just enough poison to render me unconscious without killing me and then invading my insides with instruments I don’t ever want to see is definitely NOT routine.

And what about that 96% chance of success? Twenty-four to one on as the bookies put it. Pretty well a racing certainty, but would you bet your life savings even at those odds? Put differently, how would you feel about “your captain and crew wish to welcome you aboard KamiKaze airlines, there is a 4% chance of failure, but don’t worry and have a pleasant flight”? Get me to the emergency exit NOW.

Finally how about that rather arrogant “I have chosen” – it’s to give me the impression I’m still in some sort of control. Hmmm Graham, glad to see the art of self-delusion isn’t dead then are we? I was warned that he is a fanatical devotee of a certain European football club, so we consulted the match schedule to ensure there was no possibility of him operating on me the day after his side loses, an eventuality that brings on something akin to clinical depression apparently, and the last thing anyone needs is a suicidal surgeon. See - I’m still at it, kidding myself I’m controlling the date, when it’s actually just the first available one on his list.

Just in case you hadn’t spotted it, underneath this calm Anglo-Saxon sang-froid (this is Lebanon so mixing up languages is er, well, yes that’s the word - routine) logical acceptance is trying hard not to turn into emotional panic.

And then came a ‘phone call from a family friend – “Why didn’t you choose my husband to operate on you, he’s a pioneer in this field!” Oh dear, I’ve managed to offend someone as well. Suddenly the answer struck me, "Sorry, I didn't think he'd be interested in something 'routine'"!

Public speaking anyone? The English Speaking Union addresses the BLBG

What would you do with a spare $100?

Enjoy a celebration dinner for two? Buy a designer label shirt perhaps? Order the top five or so best selling books from Amazon? Start a successful organisation to promote the English language?

“Whoops, sorry, could you run that last one past me again please?” do I hear you say? Certainly, no problem, because that’s exactly what Youmna Asseily did in 2003.

Youmna is chairman of the Lebanese chapter of the English Speaking Union (ESU). A British charity, founded just after World War I, there are now over sixty other chapters in such diverse places as Australia, Brazil and China. Yesterday evening, Youmna addressed members of the British Lebanese Business Group (BLBG) with the stated objective of explaining the work of ESU Lebanon and as an aside showed us the power of oratory in action (that’s speaking to inspire - without the “help” of PowerPoint). A joy to watch and to listen to she was.

To digress, yesterday was International Women’s Day centenary, so to have Youmna address the BLBG on that day was both serendipitous and apposite. Her audience was not quite half ladies, but did include HE Ambassador Frances Guy, and the Director of the British Council, Barbara Hewitt a grouping that would have been rather different in 1911. Given that sixty per cent of UK graduates are now women, I suspect that the currently lowly percentage of women on the Boards and in charge of British companies will have changed dramatically in less than another hundred years.

But back to the ESU Lebanon – Youmna explained that it has four main programs to achieve its stated aim of promoting international cooperation through the use and practice of English. There’s an annual public speaking competition; ESU Lebanon are rightly proud that it was won by a Lebanese student last year, earning him a trip to Buckingham Palace to receive his award from Prince Phillip: doubtless a treasured memory for life. The Debating challenge, drama experience through a tie-up with the Shakespeare Globe Theatre and workshops in creative writing with the help of the University of Iowa make up the other three. Donations and memberships fund these and provide the means for sending a few lucky young people on scholarships too.

If you want to help the work of this organisation or just want to know more, click on the links to go direct to ESU Lebanon’s web-site. And if you can’t think of a way of spoiling yourself with that spare thirty odd dollars, never mind a hundred, you could always become a member of ESU Lebanon with it.

Don't just do something - SIT THERE!

“Don’t make a drama out of a crisis!”

So ran the slogan for an advertising campaign to promote a major insurance company some years ago; strange that it worked really, as theatres are full of people every night who pay to see a drama while crises are no great audience pullers that I’ve noticed.

Since life is supposed to ape art, let’s have a look at books and plays for a bit of inspiration. There’s really only one plot. Hero(ine) needs something badly and there will be dire consequences if (s)he doesn’t get it: Hamlet wants a crown, Harry Potter wants rid of Voldemort, Amanda wants to know who her father is (Mama Mia). Part I – Explanation of the “what” and “why” of the need, usually loss of life, self-worth, love, power or possessions if item isn’t obtained. Part II – Hero(ine) has numerous little triumphs and unexpected set-backs in pursuit of item. Part III – Hero(ine) ascends to glorious success or descends into dismal failure with feared adverse consequences. And it works for Lord of the Rings and Homer’s Odyssey too.

Those surprise set-backs are, of course, crises and the triumphs the resolution of them. Add heat (stir emotion into the mix) and take away light (so we can’t see what’s happening) and there it is – a drama. Well hey-ho, a crisis is a nasty surprise that’s got seriously out of hand and a drama is much the same but with more heat and less light.

This gives us a clue on how deservedly to earn that great complement “(s)he’s a good (wo)man in a crisis.” Keep the lights turned up, the heat turned down and best thinking cap firmly on head. “Analyse before doing anything else” is the first rule of crisis management.

Listen to the news: earthquake, fire, flood, revolution, they’ve all happened before – and people have coped well and/or badly with them (the Titanic was an example of both). So there’s plenty of prior experience in dealing with those sudden surprise set-backs. That leads to the second rule of crisis management, once you know what you’re dealing with, find something that worked previously and use it to make a plan.

A general principle of my life, noted elsewhere on this blog, is applied laziness. Work out once how to do something, then re-apply it. In the course of a crisis, if you can re-use someone else’s plan, do so. There are ethics & laws that mean we cannot steal the creativity, the patents or the work of others, but coping with a crisis? Not at all, use anything available, providing only that it has been proven to work, in short – Plagiarise. Some people call that experience, but, whatever you call it – make a plan. These first two phases (Analyse then Plan) can be summed up as the “don’t just do something, SIT THERE!” part and wow, is that difficult!

Right, we understand the problem; we’ve got a plan to deal it: only after that should we do and then with the utmost despatch. “Action this day” to quote Churchill. Get moving and don’t stop except to test that the plan is working.

There it is, Analyse, Plagiarise, Execute (I’d liked to have written an alliterative ‘exercise’, but the meaning’s wrong) – APE for short. Crisis managed.

Of course, if we want to sell tickets, turn off the lights and turn up the heat to create a drama – not advised. Now I see why the slogan worked.

First Impressions of Saudi Arabia

Finally I’ve seen it, well a bit of it anyway.

I’m talking about the largest Arab country, in size anyway – the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, aka KSA. “What do you think of it?” “How did you find it?” have been common questions both while I was there and since coming back to Lebanon.

Well, it’s like Nevada, but without Las Vegas. It’s very flat, there’s lots of sand and the roads are wide and well made. Pedestrians, however, are rare and the driving standards don’t really match the road system: dawdlers in the fast lane are a regular feature, even though a full tank of petrol is less than a tenner. And there’s a lot of land, so, while real estate and petrol are both ridiculously expensive in London, packets of land and tanks full of petrol are readily and cheaply obtainable.

I liked the appearance of the buildings in Riyadh, not just the spectacular Kingdom Tower (known locally as the bottle opener) and the Al Faisaliyah Centre with which it’s aligned, but the ordinary shops, offices and houses. There isn’t the architectural indigestion that Dubai’s tallest, widest, longest, biggest approach creates, nor is there that feeling of utilitarian concrete overuse apparent in some of the Beirut suburbs, so good marks on that score.

On a completely different note, though having been to a boys only school and men only college at University, single sex education did not inspire me to a life of separation and celibacy. Indeed I used to organise dances and parties at University bringing in young women by coach from single (and opposite of course!) sex teacher training and nursing colleges in outlying small towns. I’ll leave you to imagine the effects of the combination of youthful hormones, dance music and alcohol on groups who hadn’t even seen members of the opposite sex for sometimes weeks. Perhaps, understandably, both the educational establishments that attempted to equip me with knowledge for dealing with life have seen the light and become co-ed.

KSA gave me flashbacks to those times, and not the ones shortly after the coaches had arrived either. The excellent fish restaurant where we lunched, had two doors onto the street – one marked “Restaurant” which was for men only and one marked “Families”. Women do not go out alone and the doors lead to completely separate establishments on different floors. I did not see anyone of the female persuasion neither in the two businesses visited, nor on the streets, nor behind the wheel of a car the whole time I was there; those on the plane from Beirut magically evaporated at airport arrivals to reappear only in the departure lounge, I really hope they hadn’t been there the whole time.

Home life, at least the one I was delighted to share for all too short a time with my step-daughter, her husband and their three kids, seemed like an oasis of normality – and then friends of theirs arrived and a party happened centred on an Indian take away so even more social normality, according to my standards anyway.

I’d been warned not to speak to strangers, but predictably ignored that. I asked a fellow traveller if I was in the right queue at the airport check-in area, he was a local and instead of the curt “yes” normal in most places, proffered his hand and struck up a conversation, in English, before we went to our separate queues, and that made me feel good about the place.

On balance then, I’m glad to have been and seen, and, having broken the duck so to speak, will go back, not much future for it as tourist destination though. Oh, sorry I didn’t answer the second question, “how did I find it”. Well I didn’t, I let the pilot do that.

Could you just say a few words please?

Thanking family and friends for coming to a birthday celebration, giving a FOTB (father-of-the-bride) speech, entertaining after dinner, introducing an honoured guest … the list of occasions when just saying a few words is not just appropriate but downright essential goes on. Those are just the some of ones I’ve had to do within the last couple of years.

Now the mechanics of human behaviour and psychology make it a most precarious business. Staring someone straight in the eyes with a blank expression and making no sound is received as a threat gesture – if you don’t believe me, try it on someone - preferably someone you know, a stranger may be a martial arts expert and react as if being threatened!

“Come on – gather round”, so now you’ve got a whole group advancing on you, looking you in the eye, without smiling. Underneath the intelligent, thinking, organising brain, there’s a basic animal survival one that takes over when you’re in danger and, let me tell you, if you have three, never mind thirty odd people coming towards you displaying apparent threat behaviour that basic part of the brain decides you’re in serious danger and whips into over-drive, getting you ready to “fight or flee”. Adrenaline is pumped, heart rate goes up, breathing gets deeper, and thinking is pushed aside to make way for instinct. So just at the moment you wanted all your wits about you to deliver a really good little fireside-chat/speech/monologue you’re in the grip of that which was developed to help the frog escape the hungry snake.

How to cope? Be ready for the body’s violent response and prepare the words, the gestures, the tone of voice and everything else in advance. I actually write down every word of a speech before giving it, even the “Hello and good day to you all.” That way I can play with the structure, the words, and the oratorical tricks in rehearsal mode, having them all polished and ready for when adrenalin takes control. After the greeting, trying something witty or funny, no matter whether it’s plagiarised, is a great idea, as many of those faces confronting you may well break into a smile, and that is a “welcome” signal – so you tell the joke to make the audience smile in order to make yourself feel better! Don’t forget to smile back.

Research has shown that people tend to remember what was said during a talk in the first forty and the last thirty seconds; sometimes there’s about twenty seconds in the middle where messages get through too. So, if you must speak for more than a minute and a half, (but please try not to) those are the places to get the key ideas in. Look at Bernard Montgomery’s inspirational “here I am” speech to the Eighth Army for an outstanding example of clarity in a few words if you don’t believe you can get over what you want to say in that tlme, the humour was there too, even if of the “gallows” variety.

“Could you just say a few words please?” The answer’s yes, but make them few and concentrate on saying them well.

So that’s it then, I’m officially old.

I’ve finally achieved the age at which Her Majesty’s Government give me a pension. They’ve renamed it “The State Pension” but it’s still called the “Old-Age Pension”, most notably by relatives and friends who want to irritate me, which, thanks to vanity, they succeed in doing. But Old-Age Pension used to be its official title.

Now how do I come to terms with this - the hour glass having been turned enough times (569,784 and yes, I had to do that) - to clock up sixty-five years? Have a party to share the moment? Yes, ok, done that. Eat and drink more sensibly? I don’t think so. Go out, to buy a pipe and a pair of slippers? Errr, you want me to start smoking again and sit around a lot, no thanks. I know, let me do something outside the box and get a job. Since the whole idea of getting a pension is supposedly to stop working, that would seem to be an appropriately contrarian thing to do.

So I have. And it’s not stacking shelves in the local supermarket for a couple of hours a day either, it’s a full time, full on, engage brain and keep your wits about you job; but more about that another time, this is about dancing with the years.

The next thing is to realize that there is not a d****d thing I can do about it – the physical clocks run on and everything is forced to keep pace with them, there is no escape and no such thing as a time machine. Yet.

Finally, for today, there is the realization that I don’t feel different. Different from what? Well, umm, err, how I used to feel, I think, as far as I can remember. But I do feel different from how my grandparents felt at this age. Both grandfathers had shuffled off, grannie had become a catalogue of aches and pains, albeit an energetic one and I don’t recall grandma in any other pose but seated. As an over-active child, I can recall urging grannie to “do it just once more” whatever "it" may have been, and when wanting to know why the answer was in the negative, getting the response “you’ll know when you get old!” Which led me to ponder how I would know when I had crossed the magic line and become old myself. And then I spotted it. Old people climbed stairs one at a time. In my eight-year-old eyes, there probably wasn’t much difference between being an adult and being old, but I was convinced that the holy grail of age measurement had been found. I had discovered an acid test – when I started climbing stairs in singles, that would be it, no going back, youth would have flown and given way to … what exactly … well another piece of eight-year-old inspiration arrived … oldth.

This is Lebanon, and there are regular power cuts. When I returned from a short errand a few days ago there was no lift, so nothing for it but the stairs. So powerful was that distant revelation that off I set up seven flights, still two at a time!

There hasn’t been a power cut today. Yet.