April 1984... I am in Dublin, Bow street, Ireland, at a lunch meeting with my fellow colleague journalist, Job, on invitation of the Irish Distillery Group. Our host is Des Heather; I don't know why but I never forgot his name! Des keeps urging me to try some of the delicious Irish fresh salmon on the table but after a morning of tasting too many bites of Irish Whiskey too soon,  I just can't get anything thicker than a matured single malt through my throat. He can't have none of that because he has to get his two unique selling points over to those journalists from the continent of course. In vain, my stomach just won't allow it... So in a final attempt to outdo his bid he suggests: we will go down to taste his oldest whiskey in the house. I don't recollect it's age but it was for sure over 60 years old! So he pours to glasses of this ambrosia especially for us and I swear I have never tasted something nearly as good alike in my life. In comes a bunch of American tourists who just had had their free tour. A guy says: * I would fancy some of that stuff* and Des, being the noble man he was, just didn't want to be a bad host and poured him a bit of his blood too. The yankee took a sip; made a face like it was pissing in hell and then filled the remainders of the gold up with a coke; it was kinda all right then!

Pink Floyd's condom case

Funny story a friend of mine  recently told me involving 'a famous guitar player from Pink Floyd' .... He had a friend of his, a well know silversmith in London, made a pill box carrying this initials, but when he went to pick it up it had been sold to 'a famous #PinkFloyd guitarist'.

Not that the musician had a need for it to carry pills, even not happy pills, no, he saw quite a different usage for the shiny, tiny silvery box... It would serve him perfectly to unnoticeably carry some condoms with him all the time. So how did the silversmith learn about this? Simply, he told him flat-out in his shop and demonstrated it for him by putting the tiny box in his trouser pockets leaving no visible contour marks. It suited his purpose splendidly and so the sale was made. My friend just had to wait for his' to be ready some weeks later.

So there actually exist 2 copies of the pill box. This event took place some 20 years back but my friend still uses it to the day. I did not check whether the Pink Floyd guitarist has it still or indeed still has a need for it today though I learned that he has quite a young girlfriend nowadays. If you are curious of his name I suggest you Google the band and decide for yourself; after all there where two guitarists in the band, one playing bass and the other one the lead guitar....

bypass or stents

A heart a good as new… part two

Two months ago I found myself on an operation table in the Feiring heart clinic near Hamar, Norway. Two months before that Angina had been found during a specialist’s check up in Lillestrøm. I have had physical discomfort problems during the last two years and in fact these last months I could hardly walk the stairs anymore..

At 8.30 I was made ready for an angiography procedure in which dye is injected into the blood vessels to determine the blood flow into the heart muscle. A small guide wire is inserted into the femoral artery through a small incision in the pulse or upper thigh. At 9.00 it was clear that my right coronary artery (left on picture) was totally blocked whereas on the left side two side arteries were also blocked. A bypass operation seemed inevitable and the surgeon went to consult with his colleagues what to do next. For this I had not prepared myself at all. Years ago my twin brother had to undergo a severe triple bypass operation and he had warned me to check my health status since Angina is genetically determined. But my now retired GP didn’t see cause to have me checked. Already I had learned from the assessment two months earlier that my reduced heart capacity had not been a matter of some months but an ongoing process for many years.

The team agreed to further examine the blood flow in the left heart chamber; a more detailed search in order to determine if a stent treatment could be considered anyway. A stent is a wire metal mesh tube which is used to pop open an artery that has been clogged. It will be placed through a balloon catheter that is transported through the artery to the blocking area. When the balloon is inflated, the stent expends, locks in place and forms a scaffold which keeps the artery open and thus improves the blood flow to the heart muscle. A method surely to be preferred to a bypass operation which always involves heavy surgery since new arteries have to be placed in such case. Miraculously I passed the test; new arteries had been formed on the left side of the heart (see pic) leading to the periphery of the right half and thus keeping a blood flow to the ‘bad’ side ongoing. ‘Very uncommon and not supposed to happen at all’, according to the baffled surgeon who gladly announced then that two stents were going to be placed on the left side in order to improve the blood flow at two stress points there.

10.15: Stents are placed and I'm back to the recovery room; a few hours later I am walking along Lake Mjøesa enjoying the autumn sun. Saturday morning I was allowed to go back home again. Though I will have to take medication for the rest of my life to prevent more plaque forming (anti-clotting) in my blood I was assured that the hearts works one hundred per cent and I can life to grow old with it. Was I lucky, absolutely but always having been a sportsman, also in later years obviously has stimulated the heart in a wonderful way. So live strong and use your body as well as your mind….

Update December 2009-12-09
Just back from the heart clinic again after ongoing angina complaints brought me back on the operation table to have another angiography. A rather sceptical surgeon went into the heart arteries again for a new assessment after I urged him to take a second look; something definitely to my believe was not right and again a buypass operation seemed inevitable. And what appears, one of the larger arteries on the right side that was considered to be totally blocked could be opened by placing a 60 mm balloon and a 32mm stent in it. In this way a considerable blood flow is made possible again in that part of the heart muscle and this should get me back on my feet in no time. Well anyway in the near future, so I can get those ski’s on again and bike those hills…..
Live strong
Hubert

Hodgkin

De relatie met mijn moeder was op z'n zachtst gezegd getroebleerd. 
. Mijn tweelingbroer was haar favoriet en daar leed ik bitter onder. De liefde die mij resteerde, nagelt zich vast in een immer grijszwart gebied aan mijn doodskist. De talloze voorvallen dat zij mijn broer prevaleerde over mij , heb ik met een ziekelijke precisie vastgeketend in mijn hersenspelonken, of dat nu over een  televisieprogramma ging, een gevecht in de kinderbox of de toebedeling van mijn grootmoeders  café jukebox. Nee, ik moest altijd het onderspit delven . Dit leidde tot niet alleen een emotionele verwijdering tussen haar en mij maar ook mijn broerlief. Zodra ik op eigen benen kon staan, verliet ik het ouderlijk huis en eenmaal onthecht, voerde ik een jarenlange, vergeefse strijd om alsnog in haar gunst te komen, Natuurlijk, ik was tegendraads, eigenzinnig en recalcitrant! Wat wil je! Ik misleidde iedereen en vooral mezelf in een adolescentie huwelijk met een geweldig lieve vrouw en vocht daarna een weg terug naar mezelf! Ik had zoveel te bewijzen en vergat daarbij bij mezelf aan te kloppen. Wie ben ik en wat wil ik in dit leven! Daarbij was zeker geen plaats voor kinderen en juist daarvoor koos ik! Ik koos voor het onderwijzerschap. En in dat palliatieve klimaat zocht ik mijn eerste loopbaan confrontaties; met iedereen maar nog onwetend vooral met mezelf. Het leidde tot een gehaast ontslag terwijl de ouders zich op het schoolplein in protest verzamelden te mijner steun! Het regionale nieuws besteedde er zelfs aandacht aan! Ik verliet het strijdtoneel dientengevolge dan ook als een held; mijn eerste erkenning was een feit dus het was tijd voor iets anders en dat was mijn aloude muze: de kunst. 

Mijn moeder heeft er nooit iets van gezegd maar ze moet het vreselijk gevonden hebben dat ik een zekere toekomst opgaf voor zoiets vaags als een kunstenaarsbestaan. Ze was toen al ziek; misschien had de kanker haar al zover geconsumeerd dat het allemaal grotendeels aan haar voorbij ging! Ze kwam nog wel naar mijn eerste expositie en ik herinner nog hoe zwak ze was tijdens mijn open air zomertentoonstelling! Ik heb nooit begrepen of ze mijn werk waardeerde of enkel kwam voor de support; we hebben nooit echt gepraat. Eens zei ik terloops dat ze me toch wel erg veel geslagen en langdurig opgesloten had in mijn jeugd maar daarop reageerde ze laconiek met een 'dat had je ook nodig!' Op de laatste verjaardag die ze nog beleefde van haar tweeling ,bracht ze me wat cassettebandjes, wetend dat ik dat waarderen zou en zwijgend en met een pijn vertrokken gezicht kroop ze de auto weer in. Enkele maanden later stierf ze in een ziekenhuisbed: Hodgkin... mijn broer hield haar in zijn armen en ik kon slechts toekijken...

translation (Google)

The relationship with my mother was troubled to say the least.. My twin brother was her favorite and I suffered bitterly from that. The love that was left to me is permanently nailed to my coffin in an ever gray-black area. The innumerable incidents that my brother was prevailed over me, I chained into my brain with a sickly precision, whether it was a television program choice, a fight in the playpen or the inheritage of my grandmother's café jukebox. No, I always had to get the worst of it. This led to not only an emotional removal between her and me but also to my brother. As soon as I could stand on my own feet, I left the parental home and once detached, I did a years-long, vain struggle to come to her favor, Of ​​course, I was unruly, stubborn and recalcitrant! What do you want! I deceived everyone and especially myself in an adolescent marriage with a wonderful lady and then fought my way back to myself! I had so much to prove and forgot to knock at myself. Who am I and what do I want in this life! There was certainly no place for children and I chose that! I chose to become a teacher. And in that palliative climate I was looking for my first career confrontations; with everyone but still ignorant especially with myself. It led to a hasty resignation while the children's parents gathered in protest on the playground in my support! The regional news even paid attention to it! I consequently left the scene as a hero; my first recognition was a fact, so it was time for something else and that was my all time-favourite muse: art.

My mother never said anything about it, but she must have found it awful that I gave up a certain future for something as vague as an artist's existence. She was already ill at that time; maybe the cancer had consumed her so far that she couldn't fight it! Still, she came to my first exhibition and I remember how weak she was during my open air exhibition in that final summer! I never understood if she appreciated my work or just came for the support; we never really talked. I once said in passing that she had locked me up a lot in my youth and given me heavy beatings, but she reacted laconically with a 'you needed that too!' On the last birthday she shared with us that summer, she brought me some cassette tapes, knowing that I would appreciate that and then left in silence and in pain. A few weeks later she died in a hospital bed: #Hodgkin ... my brother held her in his arms and I could only watch ...

gerommel in het klein

gerommel in het klein..

Ik zal een midden dertiger zijn geweest. Zo eentje van te-jong-getrouwd-en-nu-maar-inhalen-wat nooit-meer-in-te-halen-valt. Ik werkte bij een regionale krant en had mijn sportcarriere opgegeven voor het scoren van het kleine nieuws. Mijn collega was net overgeplaatst naar een nog kleinere regio en om dat passend te vieren hadden we in het appartement van zijn vriendin een fles whisky soldaat gemaakt. Nu ben ik geen whisky drinker of sterke drank liefhebber in het algemeen. Waar een overdosis bier je slechts veel doet pissen en tenslotte fnuikend in slaap doet vallen, heeft whiskey iets van een flinke snuif coke. Ik leek totaal ontwaakt van mezelf en mijn zinnen werkten in een ongekende overdrive. We belandden in het plaatselijk cafe waar het voor een donderdagavond gezellig druk bleek te zijn. Naast wat stamgasten in hun werkklofje stond aan de bar een positief detonerend gezelschap in sjieke avondkledij: strakke smokings en zeer laag uitgesneden avondjurken. De dames aan wie deze feestverpakking toebehoorde, onderscheidden zich van de overige vrouwelijke aanwezigen in schoonheid en eloquentie...

wordt vervolgd!