Aphorisms 13

The end justifies the beans – Jack (of Beanstalk fame) – Stephen Sondheim

We are likely to live ten years longer than our parents, but eight of them will be filled with pain or decrepitude. – Jane Miller

What makes a good doctor? - Patients value communication and care, colleagues seek competence and camaraderie, medical students prize cheerfulness. By contrast, admission panels focus on chemistry grades. – The Lancet

"If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal". Emma Goldman

"Why are you chanting 'Burn!' when you should be chanting 'Learn!' so you can 'Earn!'" – Martin Luther King

“The most incomprehensible thing about the Universe is that it is comprehensible". – Albert Einstein

The laws of physics were so uniquely conducive to human existence that the universe must be "a put-up job". – Fred Hoyle

The planet does not need humans – Al Gore (and James Lee)

“The brain is a wonderful organ; it starts the moment you get up in the morning and does not stop until you get to the office." - Robert Frost.

“We need to get some broad based support, to capture the public's imagination... So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements and make little mention of any doubts... Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest." - Prof. Stephen Schneider, Stanford Professor of Climatology, lead author of many IPCC reports

“The data doesn't (sic) matter. We're not basing our recommendations on the data. We're basing them on the climate models.” - Prof. Chris Folland, Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research

"It doesn't matter what is true, it only matters what people believe is true."
- Paul Watson, co-founder of Greenpeace

“These environmentalists are watermelons; green on the outside and red in the middle” - Warren T. Brookes

Aphorisms 12

“People cannot be made obedient except with the sword.” - Ayatollah Khomeini

"Wind turbines are a poor way to harness energy - but a very good way to generate public subsidies." – Andrew Gilligan

Life's not always fair. Sometimes you can get a splinter even sliding down a rainbow. ~Terri Guillemets

Everyone spends eternity somewhere.

“It is too difficult to comprehend that so few politicians are hanged." - G.K. Chesterton.

Global warming is strictly an imaginary problem of the First World middleclass. – Denis Rancourt, left-wing environmentalist.

Unlike pilots, doctors don’t go down with their planes.

Men seldom change their minds if they have a financial interest in not changing.

In medicine the pace of change is funereal; you have to wait for opinion leaders to die off.

If the universe were small enough to be cosy it would not be large enough to be sublime. – CS Lewis

Aphorisms 11

If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see
what it costs when it's free. -- P. J. O'Rourke

Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing...after they have exhausted all other possibilities. – Winston S Churchill.

A bank is a place that will lend you money if you can prove
that you don't need it. - Bob Hope

It is amazing what you can accomplish
if you do not care who gets the credit. - Harry S Truman

Middle age is when your age begins to show around your middle – Bob Hope

Sometimes I wake up grumpy; Other times I let her sleep

He who laughs last thinks slowest

To play a villain requires a good actor; to play a hero only requires a good orthodontist.

Don't forget that people will judge you by your actions, not your intentions. You may have a heart of gold - but so does a hard-boiled egg."

Why repeat past mistakes when there are so
many new ones to commit?” - Descartes

You can't handle the truth!

"You can't handle the truth!" So screamed Col. Nathan R. Jessep (played by Jack Nicholson) in the Rob Reiner film "A Few Good Men." He then launches into a tirade against Lieutenant Kafee (played by Tom Cruise)

"Son, we live in a world that has walls and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Whose gonna do it? You? You, Lt. Weinburg? I have a greater responsibility than you could possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago and you curse the marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know. That Santiago's death, while tragic, probably saved lives. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives. You don't want the truth because, deep down in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me on that wall; you need me on that wall. We use words like honor, code, loyalty. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide and then questions the manner in which I provide it. I would rather you just said thank you and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon, and stand a post. Either way, I don't give a damn what you think you are entitled to."

Jessep has a different system of priorities to Kafee; a different version of the truth. One of the discoveries of the post-modernists is that truth is relative. Perhaps they overemphasize this aspect, but it is an insight of some validity. Many witnesses may view a car crash from a different direction and each see something or at least emphasize something that the others have missed. But the bottom line is that the car has crashed. In the Hitchcock film, "The Birds" a dropped cigarette sparks a major explosion at a gas station. We know that the real problem is that the birds have gone haywire, but someone, concentrating on that detail, might use the scene as a case against smoking, or even against fossil fuels.

One of our problems is that we never see the complete picture. Scientists tell us that even by observing an event, we influence it. Sometimes I fantasize, when my soccer team loses and I was not there to observe it, that had I been there I might have made a difference. Perhaps a smart remark would have been taken up by the crowd. It might have raised the mood, which could have inspired the team to greater effort so that another goal would have been scored and the match saved. Fantasy, indeed, but might it not be true?

When Pilate asked, "What is Truth?" he was being a cynic. He'd seen so much that he did not believe in absolute truth. Modern man might say, "It may be true for you, but it's not true for me." as if there were a multitude of truths. Yet the car still crashed, the gas station exploded, Santiago was murdered. However, we 'see' the sequence of events we cannot uncrash the car, unexplode the gas station, bring Santiago back to life.

When I was a young doctor I worked for a surgeon who used to counsel his cancer patients thus, "My dear, you have a small growth, but you mustn't worry. I am going to cut it out and cure you." The word 'cancer' was never mentioned. It was referred to as a 'neoplasm' or a 'mitotic lesion'. It was terribly paternalistic and resulted in surgeons being regarded as gods. Things are very different now. It is expected that patients should be given every detail of their diagnosis (except in Japan where cancer is still never mentioned).

I wonder if this is a good thing. Truth about the future is nearly always contingent truth. If this happens then that will happen. It is also frequently speculative truth with a varying degree of uncertainty. Given what we know, this is likely to happen, but there is a one in ... 10, 100, 1000, ... chance that it won't.

Moreover, patients don't hear what is said. The mention of the word 'cancer' still screens out x number of subsequent sentences. Patients asked to recall what was said to them after the word cancer, usually give a garbled version of the subsequent conversation. It was my practice when breaking bad news to send the patient to an experienced senior nurse who had sat in on the conversation, so that she could rehearse what had been communicated to the patient.

I have heard patients complain, "Why won't the doctors tell me what is wrong with me?" when I know for certain that they have been told several times. I can only conclude, that they haven't been told what they wanted to hear.

I have been through this experience from the other side of the desk. I have become adroit at putting both the best and the worst face on the news that I receive. I am well capable of thinking up the most dismal prognosis for myself following a twinge in my tummy, yet at the same time of thinking up a totally benign explanation for the most worrying of X-ray findings. I shouldn't think that I am very different from most patients - I may have more information, but I am subject to the same emotions.

"You can't handle the truth!" No I can't. But then I don't know what the truth is.

When I tell a patient that his immunoglobulin genes are unmutated I can add that the median survival for such patients is 8 years. But that still means that 50% of patients that I studied lived longer than 8 years. I could tell him that the longest survivor that I saw lived for 12 years, but my study didn't look at huge numbers of such patients, there may well be many others who have survived for longer that I didn't see. And the patients I saw date from the early nineties and treatments have moved on from there. In any case in eight years time CLL might be a totally curable disease.

One thing I am sure about. All of us are going to die, unless the Lord returns first, whether we are nine or ninety. Should we metamorphose into Methuselah - he died aged 969, drowned it is said in the Universal Flood - our end is nigh.

But of this I am also certain. Jesus Christ died to save sinners and rose from the dead to demonstrate that the sacrifice was sufficient. He ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God the Father and one day He will return to judge the living and the dead. The only escape from judgement is to put your trust in Him who saves to the uttermost.

Francis Schaeffer called that 'True Truth'.

Aphorisms 10

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work. - Thomas Edison

If Barbie is so popular, why do you have to buy her friends?

The only substitute for good manners is fast reflexes.

How do you tell when you run out of invisible ink?

OK, so what's the speed of dark?

I couldn't repair your brakes, so I made your horn louder.

How a man lives echoes in eternity (the film Gladiator)

Albert Einstein used to say, “Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.”

While the individual man is an insoluble puzzle, in the aggregate he becomes a mathematical certainty. - Sherlock Holmes

Statistics are no substitute for judgment. - Henry Clay.

Say you were standing with one foot in the oven and one foot in an ice bucket. According to the percentage people, you should be perfectly comfortable.

Aphorisms 9

By the time you are fifty... most people deserve each other and all the good ones, no matter what it is, are taken anyway.

The one who snores will always fall asleep first.

The length of a marriage is inversely proportional to the amount of money spent on the wedding.

The probability of meeting someone you know increases greatly when you are out with someone you do not want to be seen with.

It is important to keep an open mind – but not so open that your brains fall out

Only a foolish conservative would judge the present by the standards of the past, only a foolish liberal would judge the past by the standards of the present.

To make a long story short, Rhett and Scarlett split up in the end.

Nuggets spoken by small children: "Mum, I was born on my birthday." and in a thunder storm, "God just took a picture of me."

When you are feeling down, Look to the skies! … and step in something nasty.

Aphorisms 8

Sometimes I think I understand everything, then I wake up.

If at first you don't succeed, see if there’s anything for second place.

I started out with nothing and still have most of it left.

Talk is cheap because supply exceeds demand.

Life begins at forty; it also begins to show.

Monday is an awful way to spend 1/7th of your life.

A clear conscience is a sign of a bad memory.

Change is inevitable... except when you need it for a slot machine.

Tomorrow I plan to be spontaneous.

If you think nobody cares about you, try missing a couple of payments.

Always borrow money from a pessimist - he doesn't expect it back.

Men talk to communicate information; women talk to transmit mood.

Aphorisms 7

The quality of a movie is inversely proportional to the number of
helicopters in it.

The one thing that unites all human beings, regardless of age,
gender, religion, economic status or ethnic background, is that, deep
down inside, we ALL believe that we are above-average drivers.

There is a very fine line between "hobby" and "mental illness."

If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race
has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that
word would be "meetings."

The main accomplishment of almost all organized protests is to
annoy people who are not in them.

You should not confuse your career with your life.

A person who is nice to you, but rude to the waiter, is
not a nice person.

On the other hand, you have different fingers.

Disneyland: A people trap operated by a mouse.

Common Sense Isn't.

Sooner or later, EVERYONE stops smoking.

Light travels faster than sound.
This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

The best way to save face is to keep the lower part shut.

1000th blog - aphorisms 6

This is my 1000th blog. Tomorrow I have my follow-up CT scan which will reveal whether the symptoms that I am getting - some abdominal bloating and pains in my joints are the continuing side effects caused by the neuropathy or the sign of returning cancer. I thought I would share some of the pithy sayings that I have accumulated over the past few weeks.

Never argue with an idiot, because people watching lose track of which is which.

Too many e-mails; not enough knee-mails.

Old musicians never die; they just decompose.

If you think all your problems are behind you, you are likely to be towing a caravan

My pine table is knotty but nice.

I try to be a philosopher, but cheerfulness keeps breaking in.

After a campaign to encourage sneezing into your sleeve to stifle the spread of germs, the Swine Flu hotline’s music while you wait was “Greensleeves”.

Many good works are spoiled for the want of a little more.

The peace of God, which by-passes all misunderstanding.

The problem of unbelief is not lack of information but lack of inclination.

Aphorisms 6

Do we only value things we can count? Or should we count things we value?

When you dig your enemy’s grave, do not dig too deeply lest you fall in.

You can gauge how much you value something not by how much you are prepared to give for it but by how much you’re prepared to give up for it.

It is history which rescues theology from the realms of make-believe.

For Gordon Brown, the dead cat is proving surprisingly elastic, but it is still dead. – John Rentoul.

A gentleman is a man who treats a woman as if she were a lady.

The problem with Socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.
--Margaret Thatcher

The scholar has lived in many ages and is therefore in some degree immune from the great cataract of nonsense that pours from the press and microphone of his own age.

War does not make death more likely; only more imminent

The only people who achive much are thosw who want knowledge so badly that they seek it when conditions are still unfavorable. Favorable conditions never come.

All the last three from CS Lewis

Aphorisms 5

Don’t forget in the darkness what you learned in the light.

When you start worrying about the absence of God, perhaps he is thinking about the absence of you.

If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.

Lord may my heart be broken by what breaks your heart.

There is no future in relying on fate.

Educate without the Bible: you end up with clever devils.

Children once wanted to be doctors or lawyers when they grew up, or at least firemen and engine drivers: now, they just want to be famous.