"Two lovers ..." - Lovely song, follow the words:. Please click on of the weblinks below.
1. https://youtu.be/8BGYuH9Vxc4
2. Version with lyrics, to sing along and practice your singing -
Thursday, November 30, 2023
Wednesday, November 29, 2023
Qye Sera, Sera, by Doris Day.
One of our all-time favourite songs from the 1950s.
Email from Nana :-
Thank you Philip for sharing the video clip by Doris Day & a copy of the group photo of our last batch get together in 2018.
I hope you & Ramya are keeping well & remain alert & happy.
I also wish our batch mates who are with us will also share any updates - good or bad so that we can still keep in contact.
We cannot stop getting old & we may be unfortunate to lose some of our mental & physical faculties.
That is nature and feeling sad does not stop the natural process
Cheer up & share your kind thoughts & good wishes.
Christmas is round the corner & I wish all our batch mates who are still around, a merry Christmas and a happy New Year 2024.
Please share these thoughts amongst your batchmates if you can.
Nana
C.S. Nanayakkara
Tuesday, November 28, 2023
Monday, November 27, 2023
Paddy come back to Ireland.
Lovely composition of lyrics and music. Irish mother recalling her son, to their home country.
Please click on the web-link below
Warming up the breakfast.
Youngsters living in a house with stairs leading to the upper floors have a jolly time, sitting astride the banisters of the stairway, and sliding down. The crotch area and anatomically speaking the perineum, can get quite hot due to the friction, at the end of the slide down.
The mornings can be quite cold in the UK. Quite often the breakfast is served by 'warming up' the leftovers from the previous night's dinner. This ritual is referred to as 'warming up the breakfast'.
This really remarkable incident was related by Dr. Jansz, our lecturer in Physiology.
A newly married couple arrived at a two-storeyed guest house, to start their honeymoon. They were the only occupants and they had to do their own cooking. They were exhausted and decided to forego the dinner and breakfast. Both decided, to only have 'love for dinner and have only love for breakfast'.
After having love for a late dinner, both fell fast asleep. When the rays of the morning sun lit the bedroom, the husband found that his newly married bride was not in the bed nor in the attached bathroom. He quietly slipped out of the room and to his astonishment saw his wife, seated astride the banister and sliding down on it. She was unaware of her husband watching her and when she reached the bottom of the stairs she climbed back and repeated the procedure. The worried husband blurted out saying 'Darling, what are you doing?' The wife was prompt in her reply ' "Darling, can't you see. I am warming up your breakfast".
Address in the UK Parliament re the Gaza hostilities.
Address in the UK Parliament;-
Please click on the picture below
Ceylon, 100 years ago
Please click on the web-link below:-
(24) Ceylon 100s Years Ago: Old Sri Lanka #srilanka 🇱🇰📷🕰️ - YouTube
Saturday, November 25, 2023
'Chasing happiness'
Please click on the weblink below:-
As a psychiatrist, I’ve seen how chasing happiness leads to misery | Psyche Ideas
Friday, November 24, 2023
Padmini versus Vaijayanthimala in contest
Contest in Bharatha-Naattiyam between the legendary Padmini and Vaijayantimala.
Please click on the web-link below :-
PGV
Aliens and human reproduction, story by Jansz.
+Story related by the ever hilarious ‘Jansz’
A delegation of humanoid like aliens, landed in France.
They got quite friendly with the locals. They did a study of various
technologies that the earthlings had mastered, with the guidance of the local
inhabitants who were only too glad to show them round. Then they did a cultural
study of the customs of the area and the genteel approach to living. Finally,
the earthlings were asked how they managed the procreation of the species. The
locals who thought that this was off color, requested the aliens to show them
how, the aliens did this. The aliens took them to a machine, pressed a few
buttons, and out popped a tiny alien, within minutes. Now the locals had to
fulfil their promise. They took them to the marital bed-room of a couple and
discretely showed them the entire sex act, starting with the small talk, which
took a rather long time and ending in a frenzy. At the end of the performance,
the aliens said, ‘This is an amazing performance. Where is the new earthling?’
The locals laughed out loud and said ‘You know, you have to wait nine months,
by earth time, to see a young earthling’.
The aliens were flabbergasted and said, ‘If you have to wait nine months for the result, why was there an indecent haste, in the last part of the act?’+
Thursday, November 23, 2023
The impotent husband
This story was narrated by a colleague who was a physician with a good private practice. One day a middle aged couple who appeared very wealthy, came to consult him. The wife who was bedecked in sparkling jewelry and wearing a very expensive saree, was the first to speak before a dumb-founded husband. She complained bitterly that the husband could not perform in bed as in earlier days, as he did not have a good erection. The husband who was sporting thick gold rings on his fingers and wearing an expensive watch was dressed in nationals and appeared to be a businessman. He seemed unaffected by the wife's out-burst of complaints. My physician friend was thinking of diabetes etc as the cause of the impotence. To be on the safe side, he asked the wife to wait outside, while he did a thorough examination of her husband. As soon as the door closed behind the wife the husband blurted out, ‘Doctor, there is nothing wrong with me. I have a mistress and I do a good job with her. In fact I do it far in excess, so that when I get home, I am not physically fit to do it on my wife.’ That sorted out one problem of diagnosis for my physician friend. The subsequent encounter of the physician with the wife, to explain the husband,s problem, is another story.
Tuesday, November 21, 2023
Swarnamalee Chaithiya - Lovely
Please click on the weblink below :-
https://youtu.be/A6j96jtRR-g?list=RDGMEMCMFH2exzjBeE_zAHHJOdxg
Monday, November 20, 2023
Stories by Dr.Dewadithya, Eye Surgeon.
Dr. Deva-Aditiya – Consultant Eye Surgeon During our student days we had to do two weeks of ’eye appointment’ at the eye hospital. Dr. Deva-Aditya was one of the eye surgeons and some of us were allocated to him to do the ‘eye appointment”. Dr. Deva-Aditya was close to retirement and was a raconteur of note. These are two of his tales.
1. A policeman had come to an Eye Surgeon with a condition which necessitated removal of the affected eye-ball. A mistake had occurred in the operating theatre and the wrong eye-ball was removed. The surgeon had felt remorse to say the least. He had offered to pay a ‘handsome’ compensation to the patient. The patient had accepted this amount without signing any documents on the pretext of not embarrassing the surgeon. Once the full payment had been made, he had filed a court case and won another substantial amount as damages, legally, for this grave mistake. The message which Dr. Deva-Aditya gave us was ‘never trust a policeman’.
2. Just opposite the Kynsey Road entrance to the General Hospital Colombo, is a clock tower commemorating the memory of Dr. Koch, who was a past principal of the then Medical College. He belonged to a long-gone era and is not to be confused with our beloved Professor Koch of Physiology. This clock tower was called Koch’s clock tower from early days. Next to the clock tower, according to Dr. Deva-Aditiya there was in those days a common room for the Medical students. In this common room, hung a huge portrait of the departed Dr. Koch, looking down on the activities of the medical students playing cards, carrom and billiards, with an enigmatic smile. One day, said Dr. Deva-Aditya, the powers that be decided to white-wash the walls of the common room. All the photographs, hanging on the walls were taken down. The last photograph to be taken down with reverence was the huge photograph of Dr. Koch. There was a large audience to witness and help in bringing down this photograph. When the photograph was taken down, lo and behold, a large collection of used condoms fell to the floor in a heap, under the place where the photograph was hanging. It became apparent that generations of medical students, had not only been playing billiards in the common room. The condoms after use had found an immediate safe and undetectable receptacle, behind the photograph of the enigmatic smile of Dr. Koch.
Saturday, November 18, 2023
Forging a signature
" There was always a problem before the final examination, of submitting the ‘record books’ of students. These record books issued on entry to the Medical Faculty to each student, carried the The Clinical Professors 11 am 52 The Resurrection signatures of people under whom the requisite appointments were done. These had to be completed and submitted to the Dean’s office with the application form for the final MBBS examination. Unfortunately collecting signatures at the last moment was a very tricky thing. The particular consultant may have retired, died, or simply refused to sign up that particular student for low attendance or unsatisfactory work. As in any group, there was a fringe who would take any risk, including forging a signature, which they considered a harmless pastime.
One of the scenes I remember is a ‘forger’ seated comfortably on a table with a blank sheet of paper and pen with the correct color of ink and shape of nib, for those were the days we used ink pots and ’G’ nibs on nib-holders, for official work. There was a chap with a blotting paper standing by, to blot out the excess ink on the signature. The forger had a specimen signature of the particular consultant in front of him and started to imitate it on the blank paper, repetitively. As the imitation approached perfection, he would shout “now” and the record book would be put in front of him, to place the signature there at the appropriate place. The blotting paper was applied and now the record book was ready for submission. I do not recall any one having got caught and many of these miscreants are now pillars of society, in the medical Profession."
(Extract from "Remembered Vignettes")
Friday, November 17, 2023
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Thursday, November 16, 2023
Mercy killing, Sardinia, historical.
Agabbadòra Hammer (worldhistoryandevents.blogspot.com)
Please click on the weblink below :-
https://worldhistoryandevents.blogspot.com/2023/11/agabbadora-hammer.html?m=1.
I came across a similar story authored by Jack London, long ago.It relates how an old and infirm, old man, is left to die in the frozen north, by his Eskimo tribe. He would have been a severe handicap in the annual migrations of his clan. He is left with some provisions in a constructed shelter. His son lingers a few moments to take a final farewell from his father, to join the clan in their migrations. As he leaves, he sees the wolves waiting in the distance.
Philip G V
ReplyReply allForward |
Monday, November 13, 2023
Prof. A.C.E. Koch - Physiology
"Professor Koch’s early lectures
were frequently peppered with the name of 'Claude Bernard'. Even this simple
name was taken down incorrectly in our notes by some and at a subsequent
fortnightly quiz, it was written as 'Lord Bernard Claude' by a colleague. This error was commented on by Professor Koch
in a subsequent lecture. In the hematology lectures he drilled into us the need
to 'cross match' the blood samples and to 'double check' the results to avoid
mistakes with incompatible blood transfusions. One of the students described
this scenario as - 'to cross and double-cross'- the blood, before transfusing
it to a patient.
Professor Koch had his
collection of jokes which he repeated during the lectures. Needless to say, we
found them as incomprehensible as his lectures and we were unable to grasp
their meaning. Professor Koch would pause after relating each joke and say
'AHEM', to indicate to the class that he had cracked a joke. Then the whole
class would erupt into simulated laughter and scraping of feet. Some would even
provide a realistic imitation of 'rolling in laughter', much to the amusement
of their colleagues.
The
white coat and horn-rimmed glasses of Professor Koch are still a vivid memory.
He was kind to us at the exams and never pushed us too hard. He had done his
post graduate work on high altitude physiology and 'oxygen debt' which was his
favorite topic. Deep sea diving and the appearance of 'bends' during rapid
ascent was another of his favorite topics.
Tissa
Kappagoda recalled his memories of Professor Koch’s lectures in this way. “Professor Koch's lectures were exactly as
you described them. Their significance dawned on me 10 years
later when I started doing research in
Our batch-mates,
Ooyirlankumaran and Asoka Dissanayake were among the last batch of lecturers
recruited by Professor Koch just a few months before he retired. Asoka remembers him as a portly figure always
dressed in a white twill suit as was the custom then. “His name was pronounced
as "cock" but I was told much later by my friend Carlo Fonseka that
the “ch” should have been softer as in “couch”. I believe he drove a grey
expected to bring the roof down, by stamping on the wooden floor of the
Physiology Lecture Theatre at this bon
mot. Sadly, he was dead of a liver
disease within a year after his retirement.”
(Extract from 'Remembered Vignettes")
Sunday, November 12, 2023
Yellow flowers fallen on the Kynsey road.
I recall coming to work one bright morning after
it had rained all night. We were then in
the 2nd MB. I used to travel from Wellawatte by bus to the ‘As-vaattu-handiya’ by bus. We used to enter the hospital from Ward Place at the entrance to the old Eye hospital and walked through the corridors of the General hospital, making our
exit at the Kynsey Road entrance near the Koch’s Clock Tower. We were
marked as 'Block students' by the bones we carried. They were usually long bones
or the base of the skull.
There was a tall tree on the opposite side of Koch’s clock
tower, near the main hospital entrance gate. It provided shelter on hot sunny
days, to the visitors waiting for the gates to open at 12 Noon. This huge tree
used to bloom annually, with lovely yellow flowers. On this particular day the yellow
blooms, had fallen en masse with the
drizzle in the night and lay carpeting the road. In those days for most of the
hospital minor staff, clerks, the majority of medical students and at least one
senior lecturer, commuted to work by bicycle. The traffic on Kynsey Road began to
build up and the first bicycle skidded on this carpet of flowers made mushy by
the drizzle, around 7 a.m. The bicycle traffic increased by the minute as did
the number of people skidding and falling off their bicycles. Some helpful
souls tried to stop the cyclists before they reached the dangerous slippery
patch, by clapping and gesticulating to them from the roadside. These efforts
though meant kindly, only added to the confusion. Very soon a large crowd gathered to witness
the mayhem. Eventually the police arrived and blocked off the road to traffic
from either side. The indignant bicyclists were forced to dismount and roll
their machines along the pavement. When order was restored finally on that
memorable day in 1961, there was little to show other than bent handle-bars, a
few torn dresses and some bruised egos. That tree has long been felled.
The students who had bicycles parked them
in the shed near the Medical Students Union Common Room. It was rumoured that
after the final results were announced, quite a few newly minted doctors
abandoned their bicycles in the shed, as they felt that it was infra dig for an MBBS to ride a push
cycle. Often these bicycles were appropriated
by 'Marker' of MSU Common Room fame, who later sold them. Now one could count
the number of medical students, riding to the faculty on bicycles, on one’s
fingers. A large number of present day medical students own cars. The authorities
at the faculty have covered the drain that ran along the Norris Canal Road by
the Physiology Block with concrete slabs and have created a road-side car park,
for the medical students. A few brave
souls still ride motor powered two-wheelers, but this is a high-risk
proposition, because of the mayhem, that is Colombo traffic.
By rule of thumb.
There is an English 'idiom' - "By rule of thumb". This was presumably sanctioned by the English Church. It allowed a husband to chastise his wife, with a stick with a thickness, no bigger than that of the husband's thumb.
Comment by Geri,
Hi Philip. I think it is ascribed to ‘English Law’ but not particularly linked to a Church.
FROM GOOGLE
1. The idiom conjures an image of someone being squashed under a gigantic thumb, as a bug may be squashed. The idiom to be under someone's thumb first appeared in the early eighteenth century, though why the thumb is the anatomy that is used in this phrase is unknown.
2.Rule of thumb
Meaning
A means of estimation made according to a rough and ready practical rule, not based on science or exact measurement.
Origin
This has been said to derive from the belief that English law allowed a man to beat his wife with a stick so long as it is was no thicker than his thumb. In 1782 Judge Sir Francis Buller is reported as having made this legal ruling. That same year James Gillray published a satirical cartoon attacking Buller and caricaturing him as 'Judge Thumb'.
Saturday, November 11, 2023
Films seen during our medical student days, 1960 to 1965.
Entertainment
was limited to the radio (for music) and films.
Television had not reached Ceylon then and the ‘Internet’ was not even a
figment of anyone’s imagination. Cinema formed our major
source of entertainment during our medical student days. I would like to recall
some of the most memorable English films released at the time.
1.
General
a. The Grass is Greener – A
beautifully filmed story, of a lost romance and its aftermath.
b. Holiday in Paris – This was billed as a
parody of the antics of an heir to the British Crown.
c. The Ten Commandments –
Cecille B de Mille’s story of Moses and the exodus of the Israelites from
bondage in Egypt of the Pharoahs. It took a lot of money to produce and was
filmed in 70mm to be projected on a very big screen with audio of 32 channels
if I recall correctly.
d. Ben Hur – was in the same
mould as the Ten Commandments but not as successful.
2.
Comedy
a. Laurel and Hardy – The
‘fat and lean men’ of American comedy, had a series of slap-stick jokes.
b. Norman Wisdom – Much more
serious comedy than the Americans. We would not miss a single Norman Wisdom
show in town.
c. Paris Holiday – Starring Bob
Hope and Fernandel –. This was one of the best color films of that period. Bob
Hope was the top American comedian and Fernandel was his French counterpart.
This story revolved around tracing a manuscript of a play that had been lost in
France. It was superb with a lot of laughs.
d. School for Scoundrels - an
English comedy on ‘one-upmanship’ containing typical subtle British humour.
e.
The ‘Carry
On’ series which included such classics as Carry on Doctor and Carry on Nurse were big draws in the cinemas.
3.
Horror
a. Alfred Hitchcock – A
series of films directed by Hitchcock drew a dedicated crowd. It was said that
Hitchcock himself appeared in a scene in each of the films he produced. It was
a challenge to us to spot him in each new release by him.
b. The Curse of the Demon. A
story of a demon let loose in an English countryside, with many thrills.
4.
Musicals
a. South Pacific – A lovely
musical about the American forces in the Pacific, during the Second World War
starring Rossano Brazzi and Mitzi Gaynor.
b. The Sound of Music - A
lovely musical starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer. We used to sing
quite a few of these songs at our parties. During my stay in the UK in 1982, I
was told by a nurse working in Aylesbury, that confessing to being an admirer of
this musical in conversation, immediately consigned one to the lower classes of
English society. The reverse was the case with ‘My fair Lady’. Such little acts
draw social lines in the UK.
c.
My Fair Lady
– A musical based on George.Bernard.Shaw’s play ‘Pygmallion’. Again it had a
lot of songs which we sang in parties.
d. The King and I - The story of an English teacher’s experience
in the Thai Royal household. (One of our innocent friends at Bloemfontein
loudly read the advertisement for the picture as, ‘The King and One’ and
brought the house down!).
A pronouncement of the King of Siam (Yul Brynner), in the film,
" A girl is like a blossom, with honey for just one man,
And the man must be like the honeybee and gather all he can,
To fly from blossom to blossom, the honeybee must be free,
But the blossom must not ever fly, from bee to bee to bee".
Such were the sentiments expressed from Hollywood in the late 1950s.
5.
War films
a. The Longest Day – Darrell
Zanuck’s story of the landing in Normandy during Second World War.
b. A Bridge Too Far – The
story of the failed attempt to seize a strategic bridge in Europe, during the
Second World War.
c.
Colditz – The
story of a German Prisoner of War camp in Germany.
d. Tora, Tora, Tora – The
story of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
e.
The Bridge Over
the River Kwai. – David Lean’s film, about the construction of a bridge by
British prisoners of war.
6.
Westerns
a. High
b. The Magnificent Seven with
Yul Brynner .
7.
Movies with titillating sex scenes
a. The Light Across the Street
which starred Brigitte Bardot - The story of the young wife of a French bowser
driver. The husband meets with an accident and suffers head injury and is
advised off sex. It gave the director Roger Vadim a lot of latitude to build a
story around Brigitte Bardot’s role.
b. And God Created Woman – Also
directed by Roger Vadim and starred Brigitte Bardot had a few suggestive scenes
but was not much of a film.
Most of these
films were in black and white. There were no zoom lenses those days on cameras
and you can see the effect on the films, when we see the replays now. Violence
and explicit sex scenes were very few. The current Hollywood films have too
much violence. I watch French films which are really superb on TV5, on my satellite
TV now. Sex is always an underlying theme in the French films, but it is
handled with refinement and finesse unlike in present day Hollywood films. I
also watch Korean Tele-Dramas, which have no violence and are really wonderful,
on Ari-rang Satellite TV. They have an unending array of themes, which are an
eye opener to other film producers.
Shankari Chandran, 'Chai time at Cinnamon Gardens'
Our batch-mate Nadanachandiran, Neuro-Surgeon in Australia, has a very accomplished daughter 'Shankari Chandran', who has won an Australian Book award ( Miles Franklin Literary award) for her book "Chai time at Cinnamon gardens". It is super read & I recommend it to you all.
ISBN - 10 9 8 7 6 5 4
Friday, November 10, 2023
The motorized two-wheel owners of our batch of 1960 medical entrants.
'Several of our batch mates owned, rather expensive motor bicycles even in the
60’s.. Derryk De Silva used to ride a NSU motor bike. It was a well-known German
brand and was relatively noise free. It had a built-in self-starter, a rarity
those days. Derryk used to take the bends
at speed, leaning into the curve rather than turning the handle. This was in the style of the true riding connoisseur. I think that he was trying to
imitate Zacky Deen, the motor cycle ace of
Rama
Karthigesu owned a beautiful BMW motor bike. It had horizontal, opposed
cylinders. I think it also had a shaft drive. 'Karthi'
used to take off in a jiffy, starting the bike with the built-in self starter. Selladurai owned what I recall was a Triumph
Tiger 100, with twin vertical cylinders and overhead camshaft but no self starter.
Sella’s riding gear consisted of dark
glasses and black gloves and reminded one of 'Zorro'. It was a lovely bike.
A
few students owned scooters which were a novelty those days. Vijitha Nikapota used to ride a Lambretta which
was a rather sedate vehicle. In the early days, he used to give a lift to Anula
to and from the faculty. The sight of
Anula who was always neatly dressed in a Kandyan saree, perched on the back of
the Lambretta, never failed to gain the traditional attention of the medical students, living in Bloemfontein Hostel. Perrin and Geri Jayasekara, who behaved more
like cousins than brothers, also had a Lambretta scooter. Perrin would be
riding the scooter blissfully unaware that Geri seated behind, was waving at
girls passing by and making merry. Gamini Jayasinghe, Ganeshanayagam,
Sabanayagam and a handful of others also owned scooters and were much in demand
when we had to attend classes in distant places such as Angoda and Ragama.
Yamaha, Suzuki and
Extract from the book 'Remembered Vignettes'.
Thursday, November 9, 2023
Sporting career of Buddy Reid
Batch-mates, please congratulate Buddy in the comments section.
Carrying our flag overseas.
Please click on the weblink below :-
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox?projector=1
Extract from ''Remembered Vignettes'
 |
| 'Bible Rock', as seen from the road to Kandy, near Kadugannawa. Photo by Dr. Philip G Veerasingam |
Preface
Life
in
Marrying
for love was the exception, rather than the rule. Much more mundane things like
race, cast, dowry and religion carried more weight, with looks thrown in as an
added bonus. Happily, looking back, quite a number of these marriages thrived
into old age. Break-ups of marriages were the exception. One of my batch mates
had continuous problems with his doctor wife, with whom he had fallen in love
and married. One day, his sympathetic father-in-law, took him aside and advised
him in all seriousness, to take a mistress and keep the marriage going. Such
was the sacrosanct nature of marriage.
We
had very few material possessions. A radio and a car fulfilled life's ambitions
for most of us. Televisions, fans, washing machines, microwaves and floor
polishers were not heard of. The clothes were washed by a 'dhobi' who arrived
at the home, at regular weekly intervals. We went to the barber for a haircut
and the tailor stitched our clothes. It was as simple as that. There were no
supermarkets to speak of and the large department stores were operated by
British business houses and they sold items which were beyond the reach of most
ordinary Ceylonese. The common leisure
pursuits were, watching films or a play, the latter being reserved for those
more sophisticated than the average student.
When money was tight (which was usually the case), one had to settle for
a sunset or dinner outdoors on a moonlit night. Trips to distant places, with
song and dance and guitar or accordion accompaniments, were special treats.
Studies
were not taken too seriously. Though we always lived with the prospect of an
examination, we usually began working in earnest three months before the day of
the examination was due to start. There was little competition among the
majority to secure leadership positions. A pass at an examination was enough
and very often, a lost love caused more heartache, than a failed examination.
Fifty years on, looking back
life seemed very rosy, in the nineteen fifties and sixties. Out of that
experience, the following tales emerge. They are based mostly on fact and any
element of fiction which may have crept in is simply the consequence of re-telling
the tale. They reflect the happy times and (almost) care-free days. They bring
to mind the rollicking laughter and fun of medical student days, when
schoolboys just out of their teens, began the tasks of simultaneously growing
into adults and training to become doctors. These tales are told with amusement
and laughter with the sole purpose, of warming the hearts of my batch mates who
entered the Faculty of Medicine,
The
photograph on the cover taken by me, shows
"Bible Rock" seen from Kadugannawa, Sri-Lanka. The name ‘Bible Rock’
was to see the similarity of an open book, a bible, lying on a table. The Dutch
thought that it resembled a coffin and named it as ‘Coffin rock’. It depicts
for me, the 'resurrection' of wonderful tales from the 'book learning'
experience at the Medical Faculty of the early part of 1960.
Philip G Veerasingam
Referances
Statistics of human life on earth
The population of Earth is around 7.8 Billion.
For most people, it is a significant figure. However, if you condensed 7.8 billion into 100 persons, and then into various percentage statistics, the resulting analysis is relatively much easier to comprehend.
Out of 100 :
11 are in Europe.
5 are in North America
9 are in South America
15 are in Africa.
60 are in Asia.
49 live in the countryside
51 live in cities
75 have mobile phones.
25 do not
30 have internet access.
70 do not have the availability to go online.
83 can read.
17 are illiterate.
33 are Christians.
22 are Muslims.
14 are Hindus.
7 are Buddhists.
12 are other religions.
12 have no religious beliefs.
26 live less than 14 years Wow!
66 died between 15 - 64 years of age.
8 are over 65 years old.
If you have your own home,
Eat full meals & drink clean water,
Have a mobile phone,
Can surf the internet, and
have gone to college,
You are in the minuscule privileged lot.
(in the less than 7% category)
Amongst 100 persons in the world, only eight live or exceed the age of 65!
If you are over 65 years old, be content & grateful. Cherish life. Grasp the moment.
If you did not leave this world before the age of 64, like the 92 persons who have gone before you, you are already blessed amongst humankind.
Take good care of your health. Cherish every remaining moment.
AND NOW:
Pay attention to all you thinkers! This is an area that is staring me in the face daily.
If you think you are suffering memory loss, read on.
Anosognosia, very interesting:
In the following analysis, the French Professor Bruno Dubois, Director of the Institute of Memory and Alzheimer's Disease (IMMA) at La Pitié-Salpêtrière - Paris Hospital addresses the subject in a rather reassuring way:
"If anyone is aware of their memory problems, they do not have Alzheimer's."
1. forget the names of families.
2. do not remember where I put some things.
It often happens in people 60 years and older that they complain that they lack memory.
"The information is always in the brain, it is the "processor" that is lacking."
This is "Anosognosia" or temporary forgetfulness.
Half of people 60 and older have some symptoms that are due to age rather than disease. The most common cases are:
- forgetting the name of a person,
- going to a room in the house and not remembering why we were going there,
- a blank memory for a movie title or actor, an actress,
- a waste of time searching where we left our glasses or keys.
After 60 years most people have such a difficulty, which indicates that it is not a disease but rather a characteristic due to the passage of years.
Many people are concerned about these oversights hence the importance of the following statements:
1."Those who are conscious of being forgetful have no serious problem of memory."
2. "Those who suffer from a memory illness or Alzheimer's, are not aware of what is happening."
Professor Bruno Dubois, Director of IMMA, reassures the majority of people concerned about their oversights:
"The more we complain about memory loss, the less likely we are to suffer from memory sickness."
We are truly blessed, So, share this with your over 55 friends, it can reassure them.
In any case, if you are over 65 and complaining about a few aches and pains, think again .......
....... 92% of people didn't even get that opportunity.😉
Wednesday, November 8, 2023
Remembered Vignettes, forward by Dr. Tissa Kappaggoda.
Extract from the book 'Remembered Vignettes
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| Photo taken in 200 |
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| Photo taken in 1960 |
FOREWORD
"The dawn of the sixties was
a period of great hope and expectation for all of us, who entered the Medical
Faculty in
The constant need to perform at a level just beyond one’s comfortable reach, the uncertainties associated with getting a “repeat” in the anatomy block or, the ignominy of being “fired” from a clinical appointment due to some minor infraction, gave us “fifteen minutes of fame” periodically. Infractions, if there were any, were always due to either divine improvidence or sheer perversity on the part of one’s teachers. There were no other possible explanations. Always, one was assured of either a sympathetic ear in the canteen, or a tale about an even greater calamity that had befallen a colleague. Such simple acts of generosity often turned a tragedy, to something approaching humor.
Not surprisingly, the atmosphere was often charged with a supreme sense of the absurd, which made the events of the day fun and from this distance in time, even funny. To those of us who worked abroad, our entire professional life has been punctuated by news from home, describing the devastation created by war, insurrection, political ineptitude and simple corruption which over the last four decades has been elevated to an art form. Unfortunately, the latter is still a work in progress. At first, it was the newspapers and then the radio that brought news of such calamities but in recent times, the Internet seems to perform this task with even greater speed, possibly at the expense of accuracy and balance. But journalistic “advances” brings no peace of mind. Those who continued to work in the country had to deal with the realities on the ground and that was a task which required an almost superhuman level of dedication to the Hippocratic Oath. Many of them did so by falling back on that sense of the absurd, which was such an important aspect of our lives as students.
Philip has to be
congratulated on undertaking the task of compiling these stories and anecdotes
that give an insight into a collective experience, which went beyond the
mundane business of attending lectures participating in ward classes and a
variety of other academic pursuits. I am
sure he would join me in thanking those who contributed items to this
collection. In their own way these
events provided us with an alternative learning experience, which gave us the
strength to follow our own stars and destinies".
Tissa Kappagoda
Monday, November 6, 2023
Recalling the early 1960s in Colombo, SL.
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| The Savoy cinema. |
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| The then brand new air-conditioned Liberty Cinema |
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| Kerosene cart doing door to door sales.. |
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| Alerics for their famous Milk-shakes and Ice-cream. Rendezvous for young lovers. |
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