Too much information
Blood and Guts (BBC4)
It’s not just China I’m trying not to think about, by the way. Also on my list are: the death of the print media (and correspondingly of journalism); the failure of the Conservatives to talk any sense whatsoever on taxation, the economy, the environment or energy policy; the bill for next term’s school fees; my continuous low-level trembling which I’m sure must be the result of something like MS or early-onset Parkinsons; the slowly gathering likelihood that I shall never know how it feels to waste an RPG-toting baddy with a Barrett .50 cal sniper rifle and watch his head explode in a satisfying pink mist; the lies, propaganda, environmental damage and outrageous profiteering of the wind farm industry; the recession; the next renegotiation of my mortgage. This is why I write novels set in the second world war. Everything was so much nicer then.
Still, I suppose things could be worse, just about. For example, if a tamping iron were driven by dynamite through my skull, destroying my frontal lobe, and making me even more impulsive, aggressive and unhappy than I am already, that would be grim. It’s what happened in 1848 to an American railroad worker named Phineas Gage and it was a key moment in the development of our understanding of how the brain works.
One problem with the brain, explained Michael Mosley in his horribly gory but deeply fascinating new history of surgery Blood and Guts (BBC4, Wednesday), is that you can’t tell just by taking it out and looking at it which part serves which function. What you need is a ‘road map’, and that only comes through freak accidents like Gage’s or years of often-fatal experimentation by pioneering neurosurgeons like Harvey Cushing of Yale University.
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ian skidmore
August 21st, 2008 6:50pmlisten to your dad. China ws cicilised before there ws a Rome or even an Ancient Greece
Anon
August 22nd, 2008 1:05amDon't feel so downhearted, dear one: remember you have legions of adoring fans and its only a matter of time before these numbers increase ten-fold.