Again buy a Breville

I don't know how many times I've told you this but you have to get one of these. Just look at this pictures and you will realise how good this device is.

This is a great recipe which is Salmon fillets with a marinate of balsamic vinegar, lime juice and honey. A total winner and I recommend trying it. Only takes about 6 minutes on the grill and is the most succulent fish you will ever taste.

Don't be shy give it a try....

Oh (Big) Brother!

I hate Big Brother - I always have. Although I waste a lot of my spare time doing useless things I can put my hand on my heart and say that I've never spent more than a few minutes gawping at that rubbish.

For anyone that's ever watched Oz TV you will know that there is almost nothing on. You get the odd CSI or Stargate but the rest of the time things are way way way below sub-standard. The only thing that's been worth watching since we left home was The Biggest Loser - Australia and that finished tonight. That has left a gap in my limited TV life and the Australian BB has been put there to fill it.

However, I refuse and am determined never to watch it. That said, it is constantly being advertised and from those few seconds I've managed to determine the following...

1. There is a girl and her boyfriend on the show and they are not allowed to let anyone know what they are boyfriend or girlfriend or else they get booted.

2. The producers went though the girl's background and found out the the real love of her life was some other bloke who moved to Canada so they went there to get him and they have put him in the house with the sole purpose to get the other two to expose their relation and have them booted.

3. Some other people are in "the White Room" where everything is white including their clothes and whomever doesn't go mad gets to go into the house.

4. See 3 as it's totally appropriately not called "the Black Room" or "The Brown Room" or "The Yellow Room" as everyone in BB Oz is white! They are all straight and all blonde. In fact it's difficult to tell one from the other. I heard that they were going to make the show "more representative" this year but it's just a parade or Arian idiots.

Rant over.

The Reaping

The Omen but rubbish. What more can I say? 4/10

Shooter....McGavin?

Went to see "Shooter" today and was pleasantly surprised. Fairly straight forward plot with no real twists except the obvious one at the begining. Would totally recommend it if you are after some mindless action along the lines of The Bourne Identity.

Unfortunately, if you've had the addiction that I used to have to the movie Happy Gilmore then you might find yourself thinking about Shooter McGavin the whole way through the movie. I kept expecting him to pop up any moment and say something like "I eat pieces of shit like you for breakfast!"

..."You eat pieces of shit for breakfast?"

7/10

MeNTaL PeoPLe MeNtAL WEathEr!!!

Everything was bonkers today. It was my last evening shift in my set of 4 and I was looking forward to a quiet one, although to be honest it never really matters what happens on the last shift as you know that you don't have to come in the next day.

Luckily the trains were back on so I made my way to work on the tracks, bike in hand but was dismayed to find the waiting room full and the whole of the ED full as well. After I got changed I plowed into the Fast-track patients (which is the same as "Minors" back home) to try to make a dent but things just went from bad to worse as I moved into Majors and then finally Resus.

It started with a few broken limbs and several botched backslabs (from the day before) needing repaired. An hour later I was examining a blokes genitalia (he was from Inverness incidently). Then I was fixing someones pulmonary oedema as he tried to drown on me. Next was anaphylaxis (thanks to all the Monklands anaesthatic team for saving me on that one - Airway skills...goooood!!!). Next I had a drunken suicidal teenager trying to smash the place up while making a bid for freedom. Psych said they didn't have enought reason to section her so she was let out. She dashed into the waiting room and proceeded to have some crazy seizure action. Nice.

But things finally came to a head in the Dept when another psyche patient (who had overdosed earlier) woke up and required sedating as she threw the best wobbly I've ever seen. An ART (aggression response team) alert was called after she punched one of the male nurses (and what a punch it was) which saw about 8 blokes pile into her and hold her down as I filled her full of drugs. It took 10mg Olanzepine, 10mg Haloperidol, 5mg Midazolam and 50mg Phenergan to calm her down and she was already kicking off again by the time I was leaving. Here is a list of some of the things she said (not for the faint hearted - you've been warned)...

"I know the Prime Minster and I'm going to tell him what you're doing in this shit hole!"

"Your fat and ugly" (OK so she had a point here).

"F*** you f*** you f*** you f*** you (this goes on for about 10 minutes).

"My husband raped me 2 nights ago (which was not true as she was in jail for trying to stab him) and now you are raping me with your drugs!"

"I want to see my Psychiatrist NOOOOOOOOOW! Not some F***ing bitch Registrar"

"This wouldn't happen in Europe, only America and Australia because American and Australian men can't get their c***s hard and need to rape women with drugs."

And the best insult I've ever heard.....

"I hope all your babies are born dead!"

Thanks you mentalist! Honestly, I realise that people have stress in their jobs but if someone was to walk into a bank and behave like that on a regular basis half the staff would leave and the other half would probably be killed in the gunfire from the SWAT team that was taking her down. I'm constantly amazed at what people in the medical profession have to put up with. (For all the psyche docs out there - I know she has a mental illness but it's still not nice for other non-psych patients to have to listen to/put up with that kind of abuse.)

As I left I had a spring in my step (out of sheer relief) and was looking forward to a fast cycle home. One of the Ambo Crew stopped me and, laughing, said "You know it's raining don't you?" Damn he was right. For those of you who did the Mull cycle 2 years ago, a downpour was in progress akin to the deluge we had on the cycle into Tobermory. There was about 3 inches of water on the road and at parts the whole of the crank shaft was underwater (including BOTH my feet). Luckily there wasn't a single car on the road but my "fast cycle" turned out to be 42mins which is almost the same speed that I can do the cycle up hill! I suppose that had something to do with the 30mph headwind and the extra 6 stone of rain water I was carrying.

None the less I got home in one piece (physically if not mentally) and I had the most amazing card waiting for me on the table from Tash. It had a great photo on the front of Tash ala biker gear and awesome chat - "Maxout Productions" I love it! I almost (but not quite) had a touch of home sickness but a rapid thought of Burbury soon fixed that!

Anyway, good night everyone - four days of sloth await!

Vicious Cycle

For a place that supposed to be a Nirvana for sport, I'm constantly amazed at how rude and disrespectful drivers are to cyclists. Because of this and the vast traffic flow on the Pacific Highway I have to tailor my work cycles accordingly - on a 8am to 6pm shift I cycle to work and take the train home, on a 2pm till midnight shift I take the train up and cycle home and on a night shift I cycle to work and take the train home in the morning.

Yesterday I was supposed to be working from 2 till midnight but when I got to the station I found that it was closed as they were doing track works. That meant that I would have to take one of the buses that had been put on instead of the train. However, there is no provision for bikes and I would not have been able to take it with me. So my options were to run home and dump the bike then and get the bus and then spend an hour waiting for the night bus home with all the Saturday night drunks or I could cycle to work.

So I cycled. The traffic was a bit less that on a week day but still there was enought people out in cars for some abuse. I'm kinda immune to it now and just swear back at them but 2 blokes in a ute pulled up beside me shouting "get off the f***ing road" and just as I was about to shout back a wasp flew into my eye and stung my on my bottom lid. I narrowly avoided crashing but spend the the remaining 20mins of the cycle with water streaming out my left eye and no depth perception. At least it took my mind off all the rantings of the drivers.

I arrived with about 5 mins to spare and had a quick shower and then got started working... and working and working. The shift was so busy and there was a doctor off sick so none of us managed to get a single break in 10 hours (no European working time directive here I'm afraid!). Then at midnight I had to cycle home again. This was when I encountered the most thought provoking insult I've come across since cycling in Australia and it proves just how misplaced the hatred drivers have for cyclist is.

I was on one of the little town roads in Hornsby just leaving work when I stopped at a t-junction as a car was about to go past and I was taking a left. I wasn't in the way of the car, I wasn't in the same lane as the car, I wasn't even on the same street as the car!!! However, when he drove past in his ancient Honda he still felt the need to yell out his window "You're a vagina!". I mean come on, what the hell was the point of that??? I just don't understand why they do it and I don't think they do either.

I've though about staring a new webiste campaign called the "Vicious Cyclists" which would involve people attaching a camera to the front of there bikes and photographing or filming the behaviour of Sydney drivers. Then these pics and clips could be loaded onto the website (included car and registration number details) so that the whole world could see how bad it is for cyclists here. I wish I'd been doing that the day some chick threw a water melon at me out her car window!!!

So that's what a hangover is...

Well after many months of no hangovers today I have one - and it's a stinker. Yesterday I met up with Nicki Mellor who's one of the cardiac ICU nurses from the Western in Glasgow. We started with some beers at Circular Quay and proceded to go on a bender of a pub crawl round the CBD. What a laugh!

It was such a beautiful day and we found loads of bars that had outdoor seating which seems to be the norm here especially since the weather here is great. We lasted till about 11pm before I jumped on the train back to St Leonards. I almost missed my stop thanks to an drunken micro sleep. It was the "St Leonards. Next Stop Artarmon" being shouted over the tannoy that awoke me from my stupor. To think that 20 minutes earlier I was slagging the drunk in the street that Nicki was chatting to.

It was great to catch up with Nicki but unfortunately she is heading to Perth next week for a few months although she reckons that Sydney is a better place to live than Melbourne so may consider moving here after Perth. Amit and Tash - she says hi and promises to get in touch soon.

Sunshine

Sunshite more like (pardon my French). I went to see this on my own the other day expecting something along the lines of Aliens or Event Horizon as promised by the trailer. In fact it was rubbish and had a terrible gap-filled story line with characters that I had no empathy for and didn't care if they died, with no twist or any other redeeming features. It wasn't even remotely scary despite being billed as thriller/horror.

In fact the only good character in the film was the one played by the chap from Fantastic 4 that plays the human torch. You actually felt that he was committed to the mission and would sacrifice everything (quite rightly) for it. 3.5/10

Get One Now!

I suppose it's always the same with these things; you buy a new kitchen item like a bread maker or and ice cream maker or a juicer etc, and they soon find themselves gathering dust in the back of a cupboard somewhere. Well there are 2 reasons why our Breville isn't in that situation.

First, we have no cupboards and secondly because it's totally amazing and I love cooking with it. Food takes half the time to cook and it always tastes delicious. I would urge everyone to get one however I wasn't joking about the cupboards situation as we have hardly any space in our tiny kitchen and there isn't enough room for everything. It's just as well I use it all the time.

I'm in the wrong job

I was talking to one of the interns tonight about his career plans and was surprised to find that he was acutally doing a 2 year internship as opposed to one year. I asked him why and he said that he had done a dental degree and had gone into medicine so that he could do Max-Fax. He was taking 2 years to do the intership so that he could continue to work a few dental shifts.

I guess that's reasonably common so I didn't think much of it but as the converstation progressed I found out that he no longer wanted to do Max-Fax and was content to stay in Dentistry but was going to finish his internship in Medicine anyway so that he could also put MBBS on his business card. Again, that's fair enough. But I then asked why he was still bothering to do the dental shifts if he was earning $50,000 a year being a doctor and could go back to dentistry when he had finished up his intern training? Afterall, he'd be able to do it in 1 year and get back to dentistry full-time sooner.

Well, the next bit of conversation was jaw-dropping...

It turns out he has just turned 33. He owns 2 private practices and is about to open a 3rd so needs to be involved with them. He actually only works 3 HALF days in dentistry and is earning a staggering $500,000 per year!!!!!!!!!!

ON MY GOD!

Here's me thinking that he could have a cruisy life as an intern for a year on fifty grand and yet by working an extra 12 hours per week he is earning "half a mil" as he put it.

One of the other doctors asked him, "Why don't more doctors do dentistry instead of medicine" and he said, "Because they are stupid!".

Quite right I think. He did also say that if anyone ever tells him that they are thinking about going to do medicine he tells them to do dentistry first and then if they still are interested in medicine to do the 2 year graduate medical course. That way they can still earn a good income while studying medicine and then they can decide at the end which they prefer. He also pointed out that it's not really possible to do it the other way round.

They worst thing is he's actually a really good intern and much as I wanted to hate him after that converstation he's a really nice guy so I just couldn't. Things changed at midnight when we both left together - me on my bicycle and him in his Mercedes SL500!

The Simpsons...!

This story is so ridiculous but amazingly true.

I was on nights a few weeks ago and one of the Ambulance Crew was kicking about the department. He's a decent chap called Bart and he always seems to be on whenever I am. There was a load of laughter around him and I was eager to find out what all the hilarity was about.

It turns out he had just picked up a 90 year old man who had been feeling unwell and then brought him in the Ambo to the hospital. "Big deal?" you ask. Well the big deal is that the patient's name was "Homer". How funny is that? Bart picks up Homer in his ambulance and brings him to Emergency.

However, it gets better... Homer's last name was Simpson!!! I kid you not. I'm sure it's breach of confidentially or something but I'm not that bothered as he's a bit of a local celebrity and has been on the TV and stuff because of his name. But the chance of him getting sick on the night that Bart is duty... insanely coincidental.

OMG!!!

I've not tasted this as I'm afraid incase it turns out to be white Bucky or el Dorado in disguise. That said, I had to buy it! Imagine calling a wine "The Ned"??? What an awesome concept. I wonder what it's sales would be like in Scotland, and conversely, what it's sales in Australia would be like if they knew what the name means in the UK? I'll let Isla be the guinea pig for this one I think... Watch this space.

What do you do with spare time?

I'm finding the "4 on 4 off" rota really easy. However, if it's possible, I think that I might have too much spare time on my hands although I know for a fact that I could never go back to that Monday-to-Friday malarky.

Anyway, with all that spare time I'm not only exploring Sydney, but also exploring my creative side. As this picture shows it's amazing what you can do with a laptop, a printer and some cheap card from the local art store. Obviously some of you lucky readers have been recipients of my artistic brilliance already but I've hit a bit of a problem which the rest of you kindly folk can help me with.

You see, I've made too many of these bloody things and since I didn't bring an address book with me I've not got anyones postal address. These cards are a bit like Gremlins that have had a bucket of water thrown on them - they keep multiplying and muliplying. I wonder what would happen if I was to feed them after midnight???

If you have my email address (which I'll not be putting on this - sorry) and fancy something in the post then please send me your postal address and I'll oblige. Be warned though, if I send you one, you may end up with millions...

Cheapie Choosdays

As I've said before the cinema is discounted on a Tuesday and because I had the day off I went up to Chatwood to see 300. It was OK. Just OK. The story and the acting was guff but at least it was visually spectacular. Some of the scenes were mind blowing but it got a bit repetetive...

...Bad guy attacks narrow gap in rocks... good guy defends it... bad guy attacks narrow gap in rocks... good guy defends it... bad guy attacks narrow gaps in rocks using monsters... good guy defends it but some of his buddies die...

You get the picture. It was also a bit 2 long and I was amazed at the number of people from Ancient Greece who had a Scottish accent. 6/10.

Isla's Blog

Sorry this is a bit random but Isla has no profile picture on her blog and so I'm uploaded this one to mine so that she can set up the URL link. Really doesn't have very much to do with Oz but hey, at least I get to put a picture of a hot chick on my website!

Winos

Just something that I've read about recently.

When you buy a bottle of wine back home it says "Tyrrell's Chardonnay 2005" for example. Here it would also say "Hunter Valley" or "Margaret River" to indicate the region that it came from. Unfortunately for the UK all the left over wine from all the regions that grow "Tyrrell's Chardonnay 2005" is put into a big vat and then bottled and sold abroad.

This means means two things. Firstly the wine that you get back home is a blend of lots of vineyards and it's their left overs. Secondly, they can charge a ton of cash for otherwise cheap wine. The best example of this has been Wolf Blass. Back home it is one of the most expensive wines for under a tenner which here sells for about $7 (£3).

So based on that I experimented with a $5 bottle of generic merlot and it pretty much tasted the same as a decent merlot. 2 quid for a bottle of merlot. You can't beat that!

I'll have a pound of mince, the Herald and two 9mm handguns please!

This was really weird. Having been brought up in the UK I'm not really all that comfortable with guns, and to be honest, you don't really hear a lot about gun crime in Sydney. However, I was in Coles today (the local supermarket) buying some innocent ingredients to make sweet chilli stir fry prawns (mmmm) and when I got up to the till there was three armed-to-the-teeth security guards.

They didn't work for the Police, there weren't involved with a hostage situation and they weren't even passing through to get some groceries on the way home from work. They were restocking the change machine. Three men with guns to replace a few dollar and 25c coins. I couldn't believe it. It's not like it was an ATM full of $50 notes. With the machine door open everyone could see inside it and that alone would have been deterrant enough to put most thieves off - the must have been all of £200 in the whole machine.

Honestly, it does bring it home that despite all its cosmopolitan charm, this place, every now and again, has the ability to show just how Wild West it can be. In some ways Australia is very much like the UK. However, if the UK and the USA had a baby and that baby went to live with it's father during it's teenage years then that baby would be Australia.

Kapasi Catch-up

Hello everyone. I've been a bad bad boy and not written anything for ages so here's a bit of a round up.

Last time I wrote I spoke about Newcastle and since then we have been quite busy. If you've been keeping an eye on the 365 blog then you will notice that we went up to the Hunter Valley a couple of weeks ago. It was an awesome experience and if any of you make your way over here then we'll have to take you up there. There are something like 120 vineyards up there and we only made it to five of them. Mind you that was enough - I don't think that we could have handled any more wine by the end of that day.

The week after that we went to The Blue Mountains for the weekend. We took the train up into the "mountains" and spent a couple of nights at Peppers Fairmont Hotel which was excellent. There were several great bush walks and we had a fantastic time. Although it's a really nice place to visit, there isn't really much to do. The views are amazing but once you've seen one of them the rest seem much the same.




The Three Sisters are really the highlight but it's not much of a highlight. If you've ever spent some time up in the North of Scotland then there really much here that will stun you. That said, it is a nice place to visit and I would go up there again. I think though, that I'd just want to spend the whole period in the hotel where there are lots of ways to spoil ones self. Leura (the town we stayed in) is really quaint and there is lots of little chocolate shops and cafes etc. You could easily spent you time here without even going to see the vistas.

Other than those two trips what else have we been up to?

Well, we've been to the cinema a couple of times and far in away the funniest film I've seen in ages was "Hot Fuzz". I had just come of nights and Isla and I went to see it at 4pm so I'd been up for 22 hours and was almost asleep when the film started. I was trying hard to stay awake but for those of you who have seen the film, the bit where the two cops figure out that one of the dead women liked older men because "When I was in school my mates older brother @*%£#!^* her up the ?%£$ &^%*" (sorry but I had to sensor that bit for the folks), well that bit cracked me up and I was in hysterics for about 5 minutes after that. You must see this film. It is totally wacky and incredibly funny - especially for people how haven't been in the UK for a few months.


Also a couple of weeks ago Matt emailed me telling me about a really funny episode of South Park he'd just watched that reminded him of me and other computer geeks (season 10 episode 8 if you are interested Amit) and it's about World of Warcraft. For those of you who do know about this it's an online computer game that months ago I said to Isla I wouldn't buy. However, having laughed my head off at the episode I bought the game and now can't stop playing it.

Ross if you are reading this - Remember that adventure game that you used to play on the xbox (I think it was Neverwinter Nights or some such) well this is much the same but seems to be infinitely large and the game keeps going on and on. You must watch that episode of South Park first though as it totally hits the nail on the head about the futility of these games. None the less I'm finding myself a bit addicted.

Work is still good and it's a bit weird being the senior. I've not had a JHO since I did ortho and it's strange having interns and residents asking me (of all people) for advice and opinions about treating their patients. Emergency here is a bit more involved than A&E back home as you are expected to stabilise, diagnose, treat, formulate a plan, do all the paper work, organise further investigations, admit under the appropriate consultant etc. So if things are not done when the consultant does his ward round in the morning then it's your fault, not that of his "team". It's certainly been a learning experience and I would encourage anyone who's having problems with MMC to head out here for a year until the dust settles in the UK.

The weather is still awesome but there is definitely a change in the air. When you are out of the sun you can feel a bit of a chill. I cycled home from work the other day at 8am (and almost died but that's another story) and my finger tips were frozen from the cold. Within a few minutes I'd warmed up but the message was that the season is changing. I guess that I'm used to the temp here now and if I was arriving tomorrow then I'd be boiling.

One major issue that's got me down recently is that I've just found out that GRI are no longer able to keep me a "Run-Through" job for coming home in Feb 2008. That's really pissed me off as one of the main reasons for coming away was that I'd have the safety net of a job to come back to. It seems that's not the case anymore. I don't blame the Royal - it seems that they have had the options taken out of their hands which is a shame.

So when I heard about that it pretty much sealed my plan for 2008. I'm going to come home and finish the MCEM exams and apply for MTAS - ST3 in A&E - and I'll NOT be planning to stay in Glasgow. Once I've been allocated a job for August I'll be selling the flat and getting out of the city. I don't know yet where I'll be applying but I think I've had enought of 'Vegas. I'm sure that won't come as a shock to any of you but there it is.

The only other thing I wanted to tell you about is how amazing our latest purchase is. We were trying to find a George Foreman grill here but we couldn't find one anywhere. Instead we had to settle for a Breville but to be honest I'm loving it. I've been cooking everything on it. I don't know how I ever did without one. Tonight Isla is at her dance class and I'm sorting us out with chicken and veg skewers with lemon, honey, black pepper and corriander marinade. Should be great.

Anyway, I'll try to keep up to date on this a bit more. If you've been reading the 365 Challenge you'll see that I've just gone passed the 100 mark which is exciting. I realise that a great deal of that is different wines and beers but when you are working in a place it really is difficult to do, try, taste and see different things every day. It means that I have to make up for my work days during the days off. We've out together a bit of a plan for the future and we've got some great trips planned over the course of the next 8 months. Stay tuned.