To the southwest of Birmingham lie the Clent Hills – the boundaries of which are the M5, the A458 (Hagley Road) and the A491 (Stourbridge Road). As well as being a popular area for hikers, ramblers and mountain bikers the area is fantastic playground for road cyclists who want to hone their climbing skills or just get fitter.
There are at least 6 main ways up Clent, all have a very similar elevation gain of around 100 metres. They are all Category 4 climbs, but all quite different in nature. If you like numbers then the following table is a good summary:
Winwoods Heath Rd
St Kenelm’s Pass
Shutmill Lane (to Ivy Lane)
Hagley Wood Lane
Romsley Hill
Farley Lane
Distance
1.0 km
1.7 km
2.0 km
1.0 km
3.3 km
1.7 km
Average gradient
10.0%
5.9%
5.1%
9.7%
3.5%
6.2%
Maximum gradient
16.1%
9.6%
11.2%
18.1%
10.3%
9.3%
Elevation gain
103 m
97 m
101 m
101 m
116 m
105 m
Winwoods Heath Road
This brutal road is listed in the Cycling Climbs of the Midlands, written by Simon Warren and used for a time trial by the Beacon Road Cycling Club.
I have yet to cycle up this road without my cycle computer thinking that I have stopped, as my speed drops so low. Choose a dry day as a wet surface will lead to spinning tyres. Best time to do it is in the spring as the bluebells may take your mind off the burning in your legs
St Kenhelm’s Pass
This is the only other Clent climb to make it onto Simon Warren’s Midlands list. It’s the first categorised climb that I ever had a go at. One of these days I am going to have to stop at the Vine pub. Beware of the false summit at the first parking area.
If you approach this from Belbroughton via Holy Cross and continue right the way through the Clent Hill car park to the top of the Walton Hill Road (to just after the junction with Ivy Lane) you will do a Category 3 climb.
Shutmill Lane
For some reason this often feels like the easiest way up Clent, to me. It is very steady for well over a kilometre with a short steeper section just before the top.
For a challenge, divert down Runbow Lane and continue to the end of Walton Hill Rd . Gives you 2.6 km climb, an average gradient of 4.7% and an alleged maximum gradient of 23.6%. The elevation gain is 135 m for this.
Hagley Wood Lane
The major downside of this hill climb is the fact that it starts just off a major dual carriageway. This means you have to do one of three things – tackle it early on a weekend morning, cycle to it on a bumpy pavement or descend it first before swinging round the roundabout.
This road can be busy as it is the main way that cars use to get to Nimmings Wood Car Park (which also has a café should you need one). The climb itself is leg-sapping and has the steepest section of road up Clent.
Romsley Hill
This road is the Birmingham Road from the bottom of Illey Lane, through Hunnington to the top of Romsley Hill, for a great view of Birmingham. It’s the way up that I actually find the most difficult to pace, due to it’s length and deceptive gradient.
After the ramp, where the road narrows, there’s a post office, then a school, then a pub. Then there is the final steep section up to the very top. You can turn right at the post office for an alternative, easier ascent up Oldhouse Lane.
Farley Lane
This hill climb is generally used as a descent path from the top of Romsley Hill to access Belbroughton or Fairfield to the south or west. If you are looking for extra elevation, but don’t want the harsh gradients found on other climbs then this could suit you.
The road itself gives the illusion that you are cycling up to the horizon through a farmhouse. On the other side is one of the more thrilling descents – Romsley in reverse.
Other local climbs
Waltonberg – technically speaking this is not really a route suitable for road bikes. Take the steep narrow left fork part way up Shutmill Lane, then double back on yourself through a gate. Waltonberg is short section of cobbled track leading to the top of Walton Hill. It averages a fearsome 12.7% for 400m up a patchwork of unbelievably poorly maintained bits of brick and stone, which are covered with slippery leaves and moss. Best tackled on a gravel/cyclocross or mountain bike. One day if conditions are perfect I may get up it.
Chadwich Lane, west to east – a lovely quiet lane as an alternative to the busy Quantry Lane. The road surface is not as sticky and there are better views and wildlife spots to be had. Fun as a descent as well. Can have gravel on the surface. Very rarely see cars.
Illey Lane – one of the main ways back into west Birmingham. A steady climb from the very bottom of Romsley Hill, past the Black Horse and the access road to Frankley Services on the M5. Can be busy and is unfortunately full of litter.
Breakfast at 4:30am, I was up at 3:00am. Well actually, I hadn’t really been to sleep, to be honest. I had been up to the toilet two or three times throughout the night. Kept feeling too hot in the ultra-insulated ski chalet in July. Anxiety had kept gnawing away at my stomach. Better to get down to the start pen early to give me a better chance of making the cut off for the long route, I thought.
After the 5.5km freewheel down the start there was an hour to wait with 2,000 other cyclists, while the Italians played bad rock music, interviewed Mr Pinarello and said a prayer for everyone. Perhaps some divine intervention would be needed for me as I hadn’t felt very hungry at breakfast. Probably just nerves, I thought.
Passo Campolongo 5.5 km, 315 m elevation at 5.7%. Time: 33:08
The initial climb of the Maratona, is a warm up. It’s not the easiest categorised climb, but it comes so early it is inevitably cold. It’s also ridden twice, so the first time up it really is a warm up for later in the ride. The most striking thing about the Passo Campolongo the first time round was the sheer volume of riders around me. The roads were rammed as the helicopters broadcasting the event live on TV swirled overhead. I wish I had been able to eat more at breakfast, but hopefully the nerves would settle soon.
Passo Pordoi – 9.2 km, 625 m elevation at 6.8%. Time: 1:05:20
I saw two amazing cyclists on the Maratona. Both of them overtook me. One had only one leg, his left and was pedaling better than I was. The other had had a below knee amputation and was using two pedals, but one with a prosthetic lower leg and foot. Nothing like a dose of perspective when you are feeling sorry for yourself.
My own minor disability would be brought into focus on the Passo Pordoi. I am extremely short sighted (-10.5 in both eyes, if that means anything to you). So much so that without corrective lenses I would legally be partially sighted. Coupled with the fact that I am in my late 40s it means that I wear varifocals. Having had issues with contact lenses and bits of tree lodging themselves in my eyes when wearing my regular glasses, I have, in recent years, opted to wear a helmet with an integrated visor, with the aim of protecting my eyes.
It does make me look a little bit like a mushroom, but that is the price I pay to protect my peepers. On the Passo Pordoi I attempted to elegantly remove my buff, over my helmet, the visor knocked my glasses and one side of the frame just fell apart and my left lens fell out onto the road. Obviously I was not going very fast, so I was able to pull over, run down the slope a few metres, pick up the lens and then set about trying to repair it by the side of the road.
The small screw next to the left arm of the glasses had come loose. My toolkit, although extensive for a cyclist, didn’t have a dainty enough screwdriver to repair spectacles. Luckily I had some gaffer tape wrapped around a CO2 canister, so I used this to bodge together some sort of repair to hold the screw in place and allow me to at least be able to see my left hand side for the rest of the ascent and subsequent descent.
The very nice mechanic at the bottom of that particular pass happened to have a “piccolino” screwdriver and fixed my glasses, tightening the other side as well, just in case. He gave my glasses a polish with his rag and smiled me on my way as I thanked him in broken Italian. The rest of the ride was now brought into focus.
Passo Sella – 5.5 km, 419 m elevation at 7.6%. Time: 41:55
I had never really gotten over the feeling that I didn’t really belong here. Not just in the sense that there were only a handful of non-white riders like me, but because I didn’t really fit like I fitted in with many of the Brits who were on the trip. The locals riding just seemed to be in a whole different class. It is somewhat disconcerting to realise that the chap on the Pinarello next to you is riding uphill, whilst on the phone and not holding onto his handlebars. This just built on my sense of insecurity that had taken hold thanks to the snatches of conversations that I had heard over the previous few days.
“Yes, well I found that when I was riding in the Pyrenees three weeks ago that organic ceramic chain wax was essential for the long uphill sections, so much more than when I did Mallorca 312.”
Passo Gardena – 5.8 km, 237 m elevation at 4.0%. Time 33:08
I had lost my appetite the night before the Maratona. I had not been sleeping well in the exceptionally warm ski chalet. I kept waking up at night feeling rather hot. Almost as though I had a fever. My anxiety had made my reflux worse, and I had a scratchy feeling in my throat. I was drinking OK, and had only stopped to sort out my glasses. I had avoided the food stops in the first 55 km, to give myself the best chance of meeting the cut off time at 76 km to be allowed to do the long route, the full 138 km. I kept myself going with a handful of cola bottles that I had bought from Venice Airport, but didn’t feel able to eat properly until I was over 5 hours into the ride. Those nerves were really taking their time to settle.
Passo Campolongo (again) – second time 26:59
With the Sella Ronda completed, 55 km with nearly 1800 m of elevation and 4 mountain passes ticked off, it was time to refill the water bottles with the Love Velo crew in Corvara. I wasn’t feeling great, perhaps in part due to the lack of sleep, my inability to fuel and my nerves, but I had an hour and 20 minutes to make it to the cut off at 76.3 km which would determine whether or not I was allowed to try the long route. I had never really considered that I might need to do the intermediate. But maybe I just wasn’t as good a cyclist as I thought I was.
So, it was up over the Passo Campolongo again. It felt a little bit easier the second time round, and the crowds on the road were beginning to thin out. One thing I had noticed was that my front disc brake had become exceptionally noisy compared to the acclimatisation ride a couple of days ago. It sounded like a very loud mechanical asthmatic donkey braying every time I touched the brake levers. But, I wasn’t going to stop and check it. I was on a tight schedule, and besides, I didn’t really have a clue about disc brakes.
Perhaps I should have asked the mechanic who fixed my glasses to have a look at the brakes as well, because a spoke detached itself from the front hub half way down the descent from Passo Campolongo, causing a worrying whirring, flicking noise. Great. What else could go wrong?
I stopped at a roundabout, looking for a mechanic, but a lovely spectator could see what the problem was. He grabbed my broken spoke, bent it into some weird shape, then worked it round and round, until he had unscrewed it from the rim. He pushed the nipple in and told me to lift the front wheel up. The wheel had remained true – so he said it was fine and to carry on.
The mechanics were round the corner. It was actually the same one that had fixed my glasses after Passo Pordoi.
“Do you want new wheel?” he asked me.
“Is it OK to ride with this one?” I wanted to know.
“Is OK. Just not so fast down the hill,” he grinned with a thumbs up, after checking again whether the wheel was true.
Cut off at 76.3 km
The Maratona is a figure of 8 course. You can choose to do one of three rides. Just the first loop is known as the Sella Ronda, and with the run in from La Villa is about 55 km long, with 4 mountain passes. The second loop has two variations, both include the second ascent of the Passo Campolongo, one gives a ride that is 108 km in length with 3100 m of climbing, but the full Maratona Experience is 138 km long with over 4000 m of climbing (depending on what your cycle computer decides on the day).
At some point the closed roads need to be opened again by the organisers, so a cut off time to be allowed to do the full route is announced in advance. Having set off at 6:40 am, I had until 11:45 am to reach the turning point for Passo Giau, at 76.3 km. I got there with 9 minutes to spare and took the turning, without hesitating. After all, it’s why I signe up.
Passo Giau – 9.4 km, 898 m at 9.5%. Time: 1:54:08
One of the results of putting a group of cyclists together before a big event is that they all talk about cycling, all the time, and mostly they talk about the bit of the ride that worries them. Anxiety feeds anxiety and the main topics of conversation for the last few days had been making the cut off for long route and how to tackle the Passo Giau. This climb is “Hors Catégorie”, which means it is beyond categorisation. Although I had trained hard for the event, really hard, in a structured way for 9 months, I had only had the chance to ride up Category 2 climbs. There are no Categoery 1 or Hors Catégorie climbs in the UK. My first Category 1 climb ever was the Passo Pordoi (where I broke my glasses) about 2 hours earlier. The Passo Giau is another level, the hardest road climb in the Dolomites according to the PJAMM website.
About 2 km into this brutal climb I dropped my water bottle and had to stop to pick it up. It was the only time I stopped over the almost 2 hours it took me to grind my way to the top. In fact the only other time I had stopped on a climb during the ride was to try to repair my glasses on the Passo Pordoi. I have an issue with climbs and stopping. I don’t want to be beaten. I have done half of the 10 hardest climbs in Britain and have managed to get to the top of all of them, so far, without putting a foot down. Pushing myself to reach the top I realised that I was prioritising achievement over experience. Perhaps it has always been more important to me to achieve than to enjoy myself at the time. Type 2 fun, over Type 1.
Passo Falzarega/Valparola – 11.5 km, 637 m at 5.5%. Time 1:24:09
The roads had been reopened some time ago, and after a quiet descent off the Giau (my brakes were no longer howling in protest) and there were barely any other cyclists around me, it was time for the last categorised climb of the day. The one that no-one really thinks about, an afterthought to Passo Giau. Needless to say it just seemed to go on forever. The spoke nipple continued to tinkle away in the front rim, on the uphill sections.
They were starting to dismantle the barriers and food stations at the top of the Falzarega, as I crawled up the final slopes. A few glasses of coke and my first taste of some local ham and cheese sandwiches. Perhaps the nerves were settling as my appetite seemed to be coming back.
Mur dl Giat – 0.3 km, 46 m elevation at 12.4%. Time 3:22
One of the longest and loveliest downhill sections from the top of the Passo Valparola gave me a bit of time to reflect on the final challenge of the day, the “Cat Wall” a short stabby, UK-style slope that was renowned for its brutal slope and ability to grind cyclists to a halt after 130 km. It is one of the fanzones, not that I would have known, as the inflatable arch and the fans had all been deflated and packed away, with just a few tourists meandering around. A single woman clapped me as I floundered up to the top. But I didn’t put my foot down.
The Red Lantern
I was so slow that they had switched the timing off by the time I reached the finish. The official site only has the time it took me to get to the Mur dl Giat at 132 km. Maybe the last 6 km didn’t really exist. I was the British “Lanterne Rouge”, rolling over the finish over 10 hours after I started. I didn’t get a certificate, but did manage to get one of the last medals before dropping off my bike to the lovely Cycle Transfer chaps, who were blissfully close to the finish.
I couldn’t believe how much I had misjudged this event. How arrogant had I been to think I might be able to do this? How could it have been so hard?
Sausage and chips (though I still wasn’t feeling that hungry) in a virtually empty hall was followed by a trudge in socks up to the chalet. Felt very spaced out and not even a cup of tea helped to make me feel better. I still didn’t have much of an appetite at the late dinner and packing felt almost as hard as the Passo Giau. At least I would sleep well that night.
Another sleepless, restless, hot and sweaty night. Overnight I had felt really thirsty and my scratchy throat had given way to a cough. The coach didn’t seem very good at keeping its temperature. It seemed really cold, then really warm. The airports were very warm and had me really sweaty at one point. I managed a couple of sandwiches over the course of the 12 hour journey home via coach, two flights and a taxi. The taxi driver actually asked me if I was OK when I almost coughed myself off the seat.
“Yes, fine, just very tired.”
A positive experience
Then it all made sense. The suffering made sense, with the appearance of two pink lines on the lateral flow test, as my temperature tipped over 38 degrees and my throat closed up with the sensation of barbed wire. The loss of appetite, the loss of power, the sleepless nights and the scratchy throat all explained. I had accidentally done the Maratona with COVID-19. Fortunately, I had placed more emphasis on the achievement, rather than the experience and perhaps the training wasn’t all in vain.
Having an event that would stretch me to my limit helped to provide me with focus and clarity about my riding and training for the months leading up to it. Without the target I could have been somewhat aimless, likely tending towards riding too much and moping and grumping when I couldn’t get out for a ride. But the focussing of everything onto a single day in July meant that there were too many things that could have gone wrong; the best laid plans potentially undone by broken glasses, a broken spoke, nerves and poor sleep, imposter syndrome or simply a virus with a reputation of wreaking havoc.
Melchett (the man from the CCG): Well, fine surgery you’ve got here, Dr Blackadder.
Edmund (the senior partner): Yes, sir — shortly to become a surgery that needs improvement.
Melchett: Nonsense — you’ll pull through. (laughs) I remember when we played the old Harrovians back in ’96: they said we never could break through to their back line, but we ducked and we bobbed and we wove and we damn well won the game, 15-4.
Edmund: Yes, sir, but the Harrow fullback wasn’t armed with the CQC primary care inspection handbook.
Melchett: No — that’s a good point. Make a note, Darling…
Darling (his assistant): Sir.
Melchett: “Recommendation for the CCG: CQC inspectors for fullbacks.” Bright idea, Blackadder: (speaks to Baldrick) Now then, nurse, are you looking forward to giving the CQC a damn good licking?
Darling: Er, no, sir – that would be against infection control protocols.
Melchett: Don’t be revolting, Darling! I wouldn’t lick a CQC inspector if he was glazed in honey!
Darling: Sorry.
Melchett: (back to Baldrick) Now then, nurse, do you love your surgery?
Baldrick: Certainly do, sir.
Melchett: And do you love your GPs?
Baldrick: Certainly don’t, sir.
Melchett: And why not?
Baldrick: My mother told me never to trust men with beards, sir.
Melchett: (laughs) Excellent native nursey wit! (hits Baldrick in the face; Baldrick falls over) Well, best of luck to you all. Sorry I can’t be with you, but obviously there’s no place at the coalface for an old pencil-pusher with a dicky heart and a wooden bladder. By the way, Dr George, if you want a job back at the CCG to watch the inspection results as they come in, I think I can guarantee a place.
George (the salaried GP): Oh, no, thank you, sir — I wouldn’t miss this inspection for anything. I am as excited as a very excited person who’s got a special reason to be excited, sir.
Melchett: Excellent! Well, then. See you all at the protected learning session for coffee and cakes.
George: Sir.
(Melchett and Darling leave)
Edmund: Well, Dr George. You were offered a way out, and you didn’t take it.
George: Absolutely not, Dr Blackadder! I can’t wait to get stuck into the CQC!
Edmund: You won’t have time to get `stuck into the CQC’! We’ll all be cut to pieces by questions about vulnerable patient groups before we can say, “Hello.”
George: All right, so, what do we do now?
Baldrick: Can I do my CQC poem?
Edmund: How hurt would you be if I gave the honest answer, which is “No, I’d rather French-kiss a skunk”?
Baldrick: So would I, doctor!
Edmund: All right. Fire away, Nurse Baldrick.
Baldrick: “Hear the words I sing / CQCs a horrid thing / So I sing sing sing / ding-a-ling-a-ling.”
George: (applauding) Oh, bravo, yes!
Edmund: Yes. Well, it started badly, it tailed off a little in the middle, and the less said about the end, the better. But, apart from that, excellent.
Baldrick: Oh, shall I do another one, then, Dr Blackadder?
Edmund: No — we wouldn’t want to exhaust you.
Baldrick: No, don’t worry; I could go on all night.
Edmund: Not with a tourniquet around your neck, you couldn’t!
The NHS must stop relying on people and relationships and should use modern, secure forms of communication instead, Health and Social Care Secretary Matt Hancock has said.
Email is as secure and cheaper than communicating through face to face conversations, the Health and Social Care Secretary said in a speech at an NHS England conference. He outlined an ambition for health-care staff to email patients directly with information on appointments to reduce conversations and delays, boost cyber security and cut wastage.
NHS organisations will be able to use any secure email provider – not just NHSMail – if it meets the required security settings. This is so that NHS organisations can choose the best service for their needs and email providers are encouraged to innovate.
The move is part of Matt Hancock’s tech visionfor helping NHS organisations to introduce innovative technologies for the benefit of staff and patients.Digital services and IT systems will soon have to meet a clear set of open standards to ensure they can talk to each other across organisational boundaries and can be continuously upgraded.
Any system that does not meet these standards will be phased out and the government will look to end contracts with providers that do not understand these principles for the health and care sector.
The Health and Social Care Secretary announced a ban on face to face interactions in December 2018. Healthcare workers are now being removed from the NHS Supply Chain so trusts can no longer employ them.
Health and Social Care Secretary Matt Hancock said:
“Having to deal with outdated humans is hugely frustrating for staff and patients alike – and in many cases downright dangerous. A mispronounced word could be the difference between life and death.
“We have signalled the end of archaic consultations and conversations in hospitals and GP practices, and as of this year the NHS will no longer tolerate them. Our mission now is to make it as easy as possible for GPs to communicate safely and securely with their patients and colleagues.
“There is no reason why a doctor cannot email a patient confidentially, for example with their test results or prescription, rather than make them wait days for a consultation or ask them to come into the surgery. The rest of the world runs on email – and the NHS should too.”
Mr Richard Kerr, Chair of the Royal College of GPs Commission on the Future of general practice said:
“We know that digital technologies, such as artificial intelligence, genomics and imaging for healthcare, are going to play an increasingly important role in how we deliver patient care.
It is therefore imperative that the NHS uses modern communication quickly and securely.
The RCGP fully supports the health secretary’s ban on human interactions in the NHS.”
A robotic voice, powered by exceptional conversational AI, from a smart phone…
“Hello, you’re using Defying Expectation And Timing Health. How can I help you today?
You filled out one of our online questionnaires and would like to talk through your options?
Excellent, very good, this should only take a few moments. Can I just confirm that there have been no deaths before the age of 65 in any first degree relatives or deaths from inheritable conditions in any first or second degree relatives? Excellent, thank you, those tend to skew our data.
OK, before I process your data and feed it into our patented QDeath algorithm I need to read you a disclaimer:
“QDeath is a predictive technology based on the most up to date statistics from the Office for National Statistics, tailored to your individual situation, but the margins for error are greater, the younger you are. Defying Expectation And Timing Health takes no responsibility for erroneous predictions or sudden accidental causes of death. We do not recommend using your predictive data as the basis of securing life insurance or writing a will.”
Are you happy to proceed?
OK, let’s run QDeath for you.
Moments later
OK, that’s interesting. Based on your social class, occupation, previous history of smoking, though I note you gave up at the age of 30, your chance of the big three are pretty much even. So what that means is that you have a pretty much the same chance of dying from a cardiovascular cause, that is a stroke or heart attack, cancer or dementia. Looking at population trends, drug and technology advances, the confidence intervals on the stroke and heart attack data are the widest.
What does that mean? Well it means that, the strokes and heart attacks are hardest to predict. Yes, I know, frustrating isn’t it?
Now I see you completed the supplementary questions on your Priorities In Later Life. Hopefully this won’t be a bitter “PILL” to swallow.
A pause
No, sorry. Yes, no, you’re right. It wasn’t really that funny, but sometimes a little levity can help in discussing these things.
Anyway, back to your hopes and fears. I see that under no circumstances do you want to die from dementia. That is a common request, though to be fair a lack of insight is often a blessing. Would you like to reconsider? No? OK. If we try to lower your dementia risk down and work the calculation backwards then we can see what you need to do from now.
OK, let’s see. How interesting. As there is a negative correlation between dementia and smoking, and smoking is correlated to both cardiovascular disease and cancer we would suggest that you start smoking 20 cigarettes a day straight away.
Can we predict what type of cancer? No, sorry. We haven’t got that type of granularity yet.
What if you have a stroke that doesn’t kill you but just incapacitates you? Well that is a risk, sir. About 23%, as is having a non-fatal heart attack resulting in end-stage heart failure. To increase your chances of a fatal cardiovascular event I would suggest that you stop exercising, drink over the recommended limit of alcohol, put on weight and never have your cholesterol or blood pressure measured. You may also want to consider a prolonged course of drugs associated with a cardiac death, such as diclofenac, domperidone or citalopram, or even high dose methadone. Preferably a combination.
I know it is a different way of thinking. Yes, but actually what healthcare does is not so much disease prevention, but simply death postponement or diversion to dementia. Yes, I know it is odd to think about it that way.
The other issue is that by starting smoking you bring in respiratory causes of death. Now most of these are pneumonia at the end of life, but you may end up with chronic lung disease, disabling breathlessness and frequent chest infections.
Well, only you can decide if that is better than ending your life not knowing who you are, or where you are.
OK. I will put all of this in an email to you, for you to have a think over and discuss with your loved ones. Thank you for using the Defying Expectation And Timing Health app.
So from (roughly) 9pm on Friday 19th January there was a flurry of internet activity to post and debate whether cover versions could be better than the original – as well as raise money for the Lullaby Trust.
This is my list of #bettercovers that I was going to try to post – I didn’t get round to some of them and other people came up with some of them too…
Any glaring errors? Anything you wildly disagree with?
Somewhere Over the Rainbow – Eva Cassidy https://youtu.be/2rd8VktT8xY (original by Eva Cassidy) #Twitterdisco #Bettercovers
Rent – Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine https://youtu.be/1omqMqpyj4Y (original by Pet Shop Boys) #Twitterdisco #Bettercovers
Man of Constant Sorry – Blackberry Smoke https://youtu.be/SFhFiLmzIpk?t=1m20s (original from O Brother Where Art Thou Soundtrack) #Twitterdisco #Bettercovers
The Drugs Don’t Work – Ben Harper https://youtu.be/k3YjRaUb4WI (original by the Verve) #Twitterdisco #Bettercovers
Without You – Harry Nilsson https://youtu.be/8dnUv3DUP4E (original by Badfinger, then subsequently wrecked by Mariah Carey) #Twitterdisco #Bettercovers
Knocking on Heaven’s Door – Guns n Roses https://youtu.be/dmNlUnsWZOQ (original by Bob Dylan) #Twitterdisco #Bettercovers
I have stumbled across a positive corner of Twitter where a group of health professionals and their followers have a virtual #Twitterdisco along a predefined theme by posting links to music videos (and videos of themselves). I’ve managed to accidentally get myself invited on as a “Guest DJ” which is ironic as I have bought next to no new music for the last 15 years and I’m not known for being the most positive social media user…
So for those curious enough to know, this is my dusty old website which I rarely use these days. Probably because I have been busy as a GP, dad, father, husband etc… But also because I have been doing some management work (CCG project and a superpartnership; yawn – now finished) and for the last few years I have been luck enough to get things I have written put on other people’s websites (see here)
When I am not faffing about on Twitter, seeing patients, helping run a GP practice, and trying to not to get too much in the way of the raising of three children I amuse myself by going climbing (reminiscing days when I was lighter and stronger), playing guitar, painting and watching films. I have occasionally been known to record songs too. The latest song was a collaboration with all the staff at the surgery where I am a partner as a surprise leaving present for a retiring partner.
So on Friday 19th January I will be “on the decks” with a special theme: #bettercovers – cover versions of songs that are better than the originals. I’ll need lots of people to join, have fun and help raise some money for the Lullaby Trust. One of things that this charity does is help families affected by Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (and the lesser-known Sudden Unexplained Death in Children) – a charity that friends of ours found a real support when their 18 month old died overnight.
This blog was first published on the NHS Vale Royal CCG website in September 2015.
A scene familiar to doctors and nurses. An urgent call in the middle of the night followed by a rapid fumbling with clothes and shoes as you shake the too little sleep out of your head. The run through the quiet and empty corridors of the hospital before bursting onto the ward, your destination immediately made obvious by the busyness and urgency around one patient. As you approach you see resuscitation already underway, someone doing chest compressions and someone else ventilating.
Many of you reading this will relate to the scene. Two things make this memory different for me. Firstly, the patient is not an elderly person potentially coming to the end of a life well-lived,but is only 17 months old. Secondly, the patient is my son. Over 11 years ago, this scene brought to…
Please feel free to copy and paste this in an email to your own MP, sign a petition, do anything. You can find your MP by using this link
Dear Prime Minister,
I was dismayed at your inability to directy condemn the US president’s vindication of the use of torture and also your frankly lacklustre and tardy repsonse to his latest exectuive order about immigration controls into his country. Whilst I cannot know what goes on behind closed doors between you I believe you have a duty to outwardly show your own country that you serve, that you do not condone such actions at all, and not just when they affect British citizens (it is already, by the way).
I would politely ask you to cancel the State visit of President Trump until such moment as his Executive Order over immigration is revoked. If you are not able to do this immediately then I expect nothing more than a full and frank explanation as to why not. Please feel free to write to me directly, or make a public announcement.
So we are all doing responses to the GP 5 Year Forward view
Who knows whether there’s any REAL investment fund. Meanwhile the world keeps revolving.
General Practice, you know the bit that everyone says is the jewel in the NHS crown, gets ever more fragile.
The point re General Practice in the most disadvantaged parts of our communities, you know the bit of the narrative everyone manages to forget, isn’t going away anytime soon.
The amazing Deep End group keep shining a light on it.
Here are some thoughts as we finalise where we are re the GP5yFV.
Regular readers will recognise rehashed material (sorry, but got to say the same thing again and again)
1)
The slice of the NHS £ going to primary care and in particular General Practice
a)
Melchett (the man from the CCG): Well, fine surgery you’ve got here, Dr Blackadder.
“Hello, you’re using Defying Expectation And Timing Health. How can I help you today?
samirdawlatly 