Ev’ry now and then
comes the urge to indulge
in treats sweetly tasting
(Image: Portuguese sweets at Café Lisboa in London, W10)
Café Lisboa
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Albania’s got talent…
The Albanian community in the UK has been in the country long enough for some of their children to have been born in the country. It would be easy for the first generation born in the UK, who have to attend British schools and mix with non-Albanians, to begin to forget their cultural heritage. However, thanks to various organizations that some of the children of Albanian heritage attend, Albanian language and cultural traditions are being kept alive in the UK. On the 27th of October 2018, I was invited to attend the finals of the, which was held in a school hall in London’s Chalk Farm.
The Albanian Ambassador to the UK, Mr Qirjako Qirko, was one of several well-known personalities who introduced the show in Albanian. He ended his speech with a few words in English. The gist of what he said was as follows. He thanked the Queen and her Government for allowing Albanians to maintain their traditions and language, which is not the case in every other country. The show which followed the speeches certainly demonstrated that despite being far from their traditional homes and many years away from them, the Albanian community is encouraging their children to keep alive the traditions of their forefathers.
The show consisted of a series of performances by young people whose parents came from Albania or Kosovo. There were songs (traditional and contemporary Albanian as well as renderings of current and not so current popular songs in English). Small troupes of youngsters in traditional Albanian garb performed traditional Albanian dances. Others danced routines that they had choreographed themselves. Several youngsters declaimed poetry in Albanian. Naturally, the quality of performance was not uniform. Some of the young people were dazzlingly competent, the rest were not bad. None of the performers was shy or overtly lacking in confidence. Each of them performed with an enthusiasm that was refreshing to observe. The large audience around me encouraged each of the contestants as they performed on stage, cheering and clapping to the rhythm of the music. The five judges praised and gave friendly encouragement (in Albanian) to each of the performers when their act was over. Three of the judges were for singing, one for poetry recital, and one for dancing. The atmosphere in the hall was joyful and friendly. Everyone who passed my wife and me, greeted us warmly even if they had no idea who we are. It was great to discover that the famed hospitality of the Albanian people has been preserved in its British diaspora.
Many, if not all, of the performers, who sung or recited in Albanian or who dressed up in traditional costumes and performed the dances of their ancestors, use English in their day to day life. They have given up parts of their precious spare time to learn Albanian and to help Albanian cultural traditions remain vital and vibrant. They set an example that many children of British ancestry might profitably follow.
Lazy moments
Feel like a feline,
take rest when you can,
life is for lounging: enjoy!
Some views of Diu
DIU: A delightful island off the west coast of India
The island of DIU is on the south coast of the Saurashtra peninsular in the Indian state of Gujarat.
Diu was a Portuguese colony from the 15th century until 1961, when it was ‘liberated’ by Indian armed forces.
The island is rich in arrchitecture dating back to the golden age of Portugal
We could only find one newspaper seller in Diu. He opened for a few hours of the day only. Diu is a sleepy place.
The extensive fort of Diu was built by the Portuguese. Part of it is now used as a local jail.
Many fishing vessels moor alongside the city of Diu.
Bird-spotters can enjoy standing by the wateride, looking for various different species.
A long road bridge connects Diu Island to Ghoghla on the mainland. Beyong Goghla, there is a frontier post between the Union Territory of Diu and the State of Gujarat. The Gujarati policemen…
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Through the tongue
During my three and a half decades working as a dentist, I have been assisted by numerous ladies varying in age from sixteen to over seventy years. ‘Carly’ was one of them. When she joined me in a practice west of London, it was the first time she had worked in a dental practice. She was a quick learner, but far from discreet.
When we had a new patient, we recorded the person’s details on the outside of a record card. One day, a smart-looking woman sat down in my dental chair, a new patient, and I asked her for her personal details: name, date of birth, address, and so on. Carly entered the information on the record card. When we had finished, Carly asked the patient:
“Are you M.R.S. or M.I.S.S?”
The lady replied:
“Miss.”
Quick as a flash, Carly said:
“I can’t see why you ain’t married. You ain’t ugly or anythink.”
The lady took this quite well. She could see that Carly meant no harm.
One Monday morning, Carly arrived and said to me:
“Ere, look at this”
She stuck out her tongue, which had a shiny silver-coloured metal stud pierced through it. I was lost for words for a moment, and then asked her if it was uncomfortable.
“No, it ain’t,” she replied, “It makes eating spaghetti difficult, though. It gets caught up on it.”
All morning, whenever a patient sat in my dental chair, she would tap the patient’s shoulder, and then say: “Wht d’ya think?” before sticking her tongue out to display her stud to the person in the chair. Most of the patients were either politely complimentary of just smiled. By now, my regular patients had got used to Carly and her friendly but cheeky manners.
Another day, Carly arrived at work. Very excitedly, she told me:
“You’ll never guess how much I paid for a large pack of prawns at Tesco’s.”
“Four pounds?” I guessed.
“No, just a quid.”
“That’s a good bargain,” I said.
“What me and me boyfriend do,” Carly explained, “is we swap the labels on the packets in the chiller so that we get the special offer prices instead.”
“Be careful,” I advised.
On yet another occasion, Carly arrived at work looking distressed. I asked her what was wrong.
“I crashed me boyfriend’s car.”
“But you haven’t got a license have you, Carly?”
“No, but I was drunk. I got in his car and drove it backwards into a lamppost.”
I am sure that the boyfriend was not pleased because throughout the day Carly was rung up by him on her mobile ‘phone. She would go out into the corridor, but because she was screaming at her chap so loudly, everyone could hear her.
During one appointment, I was beginning to scale (remove the dental tartar or calculus) a lady’s teeth. After a few minutes, while I changed instruments the lady, a well-dressed woman with airs and graces, asked me:
“Excuse me, Mr Yamey, but what exactly are you doing to my teeth?”
Before I could answer, Carly replied quickly:
“E’s cleaning the crap off yer teeth.”
The patient seemed quite happy with this simple summary.
Despite Carly’s occasional rather undignified comments, she was an excellent assistant. Patients appreciated her unpretentious, friendly, open approach and the fact that she was rarely silent. After a few months, when she had gained some experience, Carly left our practice to take up a better paid position in another dental practice. Some weeks after she had been working there, she dropped into our surgery to say ‘hallo’. I asked her how she was getting on in her new job. She replied:
“It’s ok, but they have told me not to open my mouth during the day.”
Picture source: “Der Zahnarzt in der Karikatur” by E Hinrich (1963)
Microcosm
A world in a bottle,
encapsulated
within a thin wall of glass
Spirits roaming
Eve of All Saints Day,
spirits are roaming:
today, it is Halloween
Back to BASIC
During the last two years (1968-69) at my secondary school, Highgate School in north London, we were taught about computing. The teacher in charge was one of the pioneers of the computer programming language called BASIC (an acronym for Beginner’s All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code). The first version of BASIC, which was considerably simpler to use than FORTRAN or COBOL, was released in 1964. So, our teacher was advanced in introducing it to us. We learned about creating flow diagrams and then converting them into BASIC.
When I learnt BASIC back in the late sixties, the only computers available were huge main-frame machines that occupied large rooms. PCs and lap-tops were not yet available, or hardly even imagined. The school did not possess a main-frame computer. But, it did possess a keyboard attached to a telephone line. By dialling a number, the keyboard could be connected to a remote computer. It was not possible to type directly into the computer. First the programme that we concocted had to be typed on the keyboard, which converted the programme into a series of holes on a long ribbon of paper. When the programme had been transferred into the punched holes, the remoter computer was dialled, and then the long strip had to be fed into a slot on the keyboard console. Then, the author of the programme had to hold his breath. For, it would be some time before the computer sent back a message that was typed by the console onto its paper-feed. More often than not, the message would convey the sad news that the programme had an error. Then, it was back to the ‘drawing board’ to determine where we had gone wrong.
When the programme was correct, the results were exciting. Some people used the computer to do statistical work, or to generate answers to mathematical problems. I discovered how to make the computer write random poetry. I submitted some of what I produced to the school’s magazine, but it was turned down.
Several of my fellow pupils and I became obsessed with programming. We could not get enough of experimenting with programming. The console was kept locked in a wooden cabinet, which could only be opened by our teacher. Somehow or other one of us managed to get a copy of the key, and, more importantly noticed the number that our teacher dialled to access the computer. From then onwards, we had far greater access to the machine.
The IBM company lent the school a prototype of a table top computer. This could only be programmed using machine language, which is the coding that underlies languages such as BASIC, FORTRAN, and COBOL. Using machine language is real programming, and quite difficult. It was to difficult for me to master even at a very simple level.
When I went for my interview at the Physiology Department at University College London (‘UCL’), the other candidates and I were shown the room containing a large computer, which the Department possessed. The staff were very proud of these advance machines that were able to process experimental data in “real time”. Information from the measuring instruments employed in the experiments was converted into numerical data that could then be processed statistically by the computer, and then displayed to the experimenters while the experiment was proceeding.
A week or two after my interview at UCL, I went for another interview, this time at the Physiolgy Department of Chelsea College (now long since closed). After I had been several questions by the Prof and some of his colleagues, they allowed me to ask any questions I had. Having been impressed by what I had seen at UCL, I asked:
“Do you use computers in your department here at Chelsea?”
“Of course, we do, all the time” answered the Prof immediately.
After a short pause, one of his colleagues said:
“Well … actually… we don’t have any computers in this college.”
Then the Prof said something, which I found rather pathetic:
“I can understand that your first choice is UCL. However, we would be happy to offer you a place in our department providing you will promise to accept our offer if UCL does not give you one.”
Fortunately, UCL did offer me a place on their course.
I gained admission to UCL, my first choice amongst the six universities to which I applied. During our first year, we had to take a course in physics. Once a week, we spent an afternoon in the laboratory carrying out practical work. One day, we were asked to write computer programmes to solve a chosen problem. I was the only person (in our class of fifty students), who could complete the task. No one else had a clue as to how to do it. They had attended good secondary schools all over the country, but only mine had offered teaching in computer science.
After that class in the physics laboratory in 1970, I did not touch a computer until about 1997. We bought a PC, because my wife needed one for her studies. When she was not using it, I experimented with it. It operated with one of the Windows programmes. I was flummoxed. It seemed quite different to what I experienced in the late sixties. How was I going to programme it? After a short while, I realised that things had moved on a long way since I learnt BASIC.
Image source: www.quora.com
Inspired light
Sun shining on tall spire
At end of day
Autumn evening: inspired
Pull it out…
After qualifying at University College Hospital Dental School in early 1982, I practised dentistry for another thirty-five and a half years. I never owned my own practice but worked in those owned by other people. I worked in a total of five practices. With exception of one practice, where I worked for less than eight months, I enjoyed the conditions of the rest. None of my ‘bosses’ (i.e. the practice owners) appeared to mind how much or how little I earned for them and how much time I took off for travelling. I am grateful to them for their tolerant attitudes towards my laid-back approach to work.
My first boss, ‘J’, provided gave me a smooth introduction to the trials and tribulations of general dental practice. He was always ready to give me advice if I needed it, but gently encouraged me to take control of my decision making so that I became in charge of what I was doing.
During the first few months of being in practice, I often encountered difficulties when extracting teeth. Maybe, at that time I had insufficient experience to know when an extraction was likely to be too difficult for me to perform. Maybe, some teeth are just very hard to extract. This is the case.
If I got stuck midway through an extraction, I would ask my dental nurse to summon J. When J, who was very skilled at extracting teeth, arrived, he would work on the tooth up to a certain point. Then he would say to me that I should finish the job. He could have easily completed the extraction himself, but he wanted me to do it so that my patient would not lose confidence in me. I feel that this was extremely kind of him and will always be grateful for his sensitive approach. Later in the day, when there were no patients about, he used to take me aside and explain what he had done to loosen the tooth. Thus, I learned how to improve my technique.
As the years passed, my ability to perform extractions, even difficult ones, increased. Often, I would extract teeth that my colleagues would have referred to specialists. Although some of my other dental skills improved over the years, It is sad to relate that what I became best at was removing teeth rather than saving them!
PS: dentists never PULL out teeth; they use various techniques to widen the tooth socket and to split the collagen fibres that hold the tooth in the socket.
Picture source: “Der Zahnarzt in der Karikatur” by E Heinrich (1963)
