I believe that it's the small things in life that matter. You can improve something by making tiny changes, and by working up from the bottom, you can truly achieve greatness.
Okay, so it’s time for my traditional rundown of this year’s Eurovision entries.
The Grand Final of Eurovision 2011 is due to be staged in Düsseldorf, Germany on the 14th of May, and there are a whopping 43 entrants this year, with the return of San Marino, Austria, Hungary and Italy (who return after a 14 year gap).
As the biggest funders of the contest, the UK, France, Spain, Italy and Germany automatically qualify for the Final, leaving twenty places for the remaining 38 countries, who’ll be decided from two semi-finals in the preceding week. One of my biggest sadnesses about Eurovision is that some gems, both musical and comedy, are often confined to these semi-finals, so do take a look.
I’ve gone with my gut and reviewed these songs after just one listen to try and get an idea of how they’ll stand up on the actual night.
In the past I’ve gone for the chronological or alphabetical approach; this time I’ve decided to group the songs of a similar style together, and I’ll blog each “category” together. Hopefully, I’ll finish not feeling too shell-shocked, and we’ll round off with a blog about which songs I came back to listen to.
The BBC site is great if you find yourself getting sucked into Eurovision world, and if you totally fall in, ESC Today has all the latest news, as well as unintentionally hilarious interviews conducted in awkward English.
If it's snowing or has snowed, it is not appropriate to drive at 70mph or faster. Slow down and leave loads of room between you and the person in front. (cf. my M40 crash on 23/12/10)
If you work in Customer Services, please provide your customers with information about your service that is accurate. (cf. FlyBE's denial of fog 27-29/12/10 when you couldn't see the bloody bus stop, never mind the runway)
If you are a person who goes jogging in the dark when there is snow and ice everywhere, do not expect your local A&E to be thrilled to see you when you have broken something.
Likewise, if you are thinking of seeing any health professional whatsoever with a joint/muscle/back pain, then please do try a paracetamol or ibuprofen before you book an appointment to say that you've tried "everything" and/or that you "don't believe in tablets".
Do not attend sales at any store that opens hours after Christmas Day in the hope of securing a bargain. If we all just stop and think about where we really want to be at 4am on Boxing Day, I doubt it is in a queue to buy some Next jeans with £3 off. Don't go, and the stores might start opening later.
Please knock on your neighbour's door and get a contact number for them. Then, if for sake of argument, they don't isolate their water supply during freezing weather leading to your entire road's supply becoming disrupted when the pipes burst and thaw, you can come and unlock the door to find your house ankle deep in water, turn off the stopcock and arrange a plumber, rather than your neighbour having to call the Fire Brigade.
Give money to charity. Maybe it will keep the chuggers off the streets.
If you are planning to be in public, such as in a crowded shop or perhaps on a bus or train, please have a wash at some point in the days beforehand. Thanks.
If you are a journalist, please try to relate your headlines and emphasis to reflect the facts and gravitas of the story. Especially where science is concerned. (cf. BBC News 24 "headlining" the fact that Northern Irish "have not had a shower in 2 days... and must take THEIR OWN containers to water collection points" following the arctic-induced drought.)
If you are a politician, tell me what you plan to do and how you plan to do it. I do not want to hear how other politicians have failed me, how their plan is not as good as your plan or how "there should be an inquiry". You'll convince me much better with positive information about yourself backed up with facts I can verify far more than simply spouting playground teasing of others.
20th December: Horrendous locum shift at previous workplace. Taken advantage of; had to trial a new "system" of unblockable A&E referrals (predictably resulting in a doubling of workload); minimal senior support between 1-5pm; and witnessing a tragedy caused by others but cleaned up partially by me and mainly by a good friend.
21st December: Trafford Centre for last minute gift gathering in what was nearly a stress-free visit (with a free 30 minute round trip walking to the car park) Present wrapping. Romantic evening with Dave
22nd December: Last minute gift buying in Preston. Set off for Southampton via Manchester. Crashed car into central reservation as a result of combination of knobheads on M40 near Warwick. Mental overtaking lorries, snow and ice in the road, drivers leaving less than 50cm gap, drivers cruising from lane to lane at 70mph+ and a previous accident in lane 3 all led to the longest ten seconds of my life as I simultaneously made the best of an inevitable skid situation and figured out how not to die by crashing into traffic or a car stuck on lane 3. M40 closed for 30 minutes as I was accident No. 12 that evening. Spent evening chatting to Highways Agency and then a recovery guy who was like my angel. Home and quite lengthy hugs with family. Not a great night's sleep.
23rd December: Insurance company, figuring out work and calming down. Last of present wrapping. Some Glee DVD. Evening of Coach Trip by the fire.
Christmas Eve Celebrated Polish Christmas with my family although the dreary "Midnight" Mass at 8.30pm even annoyed my ultra-Catholic grandmother. Delicious borscht courtesy of my new aunt Elena!
Christmas Day Christmas with both sets of grandparents for first time in many years. Wonderful!
Boxing Day Glee catches on as my dad happens to see the Madonna episode and then mum gets in on the action. Third of the series covered in one day. Brother not impressed AT ALL!
27th December Our old New Zealander friend Ros comes to stay for a day or three and we talk about food lots. And have a drink or three.
28th December Last day at home. See Lozza for lunch and end of year catch up in Jolly Sailor. Supposedly flying home (now that car is in a garage in Manchester somewhere) but fog in Southampton prevents this (after a thoughtful 4 hour wait in the airport).
29th December Up at 5am to try and get flight... cancelled again and train is going to cost about £100. Have to cancel work and then feel guilty as every news bulletin declares the day "the busiest of the year" for A&Es. Take a walk around foggy Woolston and go to the shore to listen to the cacophony of fog horns despite zero visibility.
30th December Poor information from FlyBE and BAA mean arrive at airport to check in for 2nd rebooking only for flight to then be delayed for 4 hours. Arrive back in Manc a mere 39 hours after initially suspected. Misti saves the day by driving me to garage to find car not as damaged as could have been (good safety rating huh?)
By no means exhaustive, to deny creativity, or to suggest I expect any gifts at all, but merely a guide to things I might buy for myself were it not for the approaching season. (that is all)
In a bid to reverse my 3 month bout of overwheleming negativity, I decided to count how often someone said "thank you" to me at work this week.
This failed on two parts. One, I completely forgot about one hour in, but also, as a cynical ploy to justify why I felt undervalued, it just didn't work. Why?
Cos loads of people DID say thank you. And it was from the best group of people. My patients.
I sometimes wonder if perhaps I get a little too close to my patients, on a Friday evening it is now not uncommon for me to personally wish each patient well and for them to comment on my weekend when I come back on Monday. I've told them where to get a similar coat to mine for their son, chatted about X-Factor, and even been offered grapes and home-made wine.
Don't get me wrong, I don't take them all down the pub after work, but I like to think I have a positive impact on their care beyond the medical. I don't put it on so that they "like" me... but it's a very welcome side-effect.
The time that set alarm bells off in my head was when a patient wanted to complain on my behalf... i.e. they felt we as staff weren't treated well by our bosses, although they had nothing but praise for the efforts we'd made ("above & beyond" and all that). Had I/we got too close to this patient?
The conclusion I've come to is that no, we hadn't. Being professional doesn't have to mean being stoic and boring. Being in hospital is BORING, and motivation is such an important factor in getting well. By letting our patients "in" on our banter and lives helps lift their spirits.
And you know what, however undervalued I feel by "the bosses", it doesn't matter. The customer is always right, don't you know?!
I remember being at school, thinking about careers having done one of those computer programs that told me my top 3 careers were "Funeral Director, Embalmer and Fence Erector". I remember that every grown-up I asked told me NOT to pursue their own career. And I remember changing my mind a few times through my Upper Sixth... I wanted to be an interpreter in the EU, then pursue journalism, then considered something science-y before somehow settling on medicine.
Anyopne who's read my blog before will know I haven't always been happy with my job, and the nature of an introspective activity like blogging is that you're unlikely to post your happiest times because you're out busy HAVING those happy times! So please read on in the knowledge that there have definitely been many happy times over the past two years!
Nevertheless I meet very few people that enjoy every day of their job. Why is that?
Is it that I work in the NHS? I would hazard a guess that the free-to-all nature of the NHS makes it likely that working in the UK as a professional offers a different and unique experience than anywhere else. I find it hard to accept that my actual role as portrayed in TV drama, the news and at various Trust inductions is that of a caring individual who will ensure excellent care and quality to each and every patient I see. (Unless you get your news from the Daily Mail, in which case my role is to give you cancer).
Does that sound awful? I wish it were my role. What I actually find is that in a typical week I will try and start optimisic but am gradually dragged down. To enable an "excellent" experience for a patient is, in my view, impossible en masse. I certainly think some patients do get it. I don't think that the service pressure enables it to be possible for all though.
It's all about expectation I suppose. We're conditioned to think that the best possible is what we should aim for. But from a public health and economic point of view, actually achieving that is costly, and the model most hospitals actually work on is "adequate" care as a minimum. That is to say, you get everything done that you need, but not neccessarily as quickly or painless or beautifully as you'd like. I love it on Casualty when one of the doctors spends an entire episode comforting a patient. In real life I have to see, make decisions and actions on about 5-10 patients an hour, as opposed to the hour of on-on-one people seem to get at Holby City. Maybe I should look for jobs there.
Some of my saddest days are those where I have to decide whether to stay late in order to make that patient experience more than adequate. I'll admit the sadness comes as I have to acknowledge that my own life cannot become subsumed by my job more often. There's only so many times you can cancel meeting friends or partners.
Should I work more than my contracted hours to do this? Part of me wants to. And patients would value it.
The mercenary side of me wonders whether it is my responsibility. I work a 48 hour average week for a decent wage. But 48 hours is 6 eight-hour days a week. To work just an extra hour a day really adds up.
Here's the maths. In my 27 months of work, there have been 15 months of posts where I work at least an extra hour per day. That is 6 hours extra a week. 24 a month. And so taking into account holiday and such, about 240 extra hours a year. (This is a rough estimate not a figure to start quoting...)
Every doctor I know does this. What is the size of the NHS junior doctor workforce? I don't know... Thousands of doctors? Just how many hours go unrecognised, but contribute to improved patient experience?
What becomes even more frightening is that consultants work way more hours than they are supposedly contracted to. And don't even get me started on nursing staff, whom as a professional group at large go so above and beyond it's a joke.
What am I trying to say then?
There are a lot of underappreciated and miserable NHS staff who bust a gut unnoticed and unrecognised every hour of every day. Maybe some of us are crap, but most of us aren't. NHS funding has been ringfenced in the recent sweeping Budget cuts... good. But I think the expectations of the public, as fed by goverment and media are steadily leading to catastrophe. "Excellent" comes at a price. Adequate may just have to do.
(Just a quick one really, to remind myself that this thing exists)
Knowing what you want can be pretty difficult. I'm learning this right now. It's easy to not like something, but to figure out why that is, what you can do about it, and what you should be aiming for instead are questions that take some time.
I've always been a thinker, and probably an over-thinker at that. But like Aisleyne I do know myself and how I tick. I didn't always used to, and I think I'm better at it now. Which is probably why I'm generally more happy and comfortable in my skin now than ever before.
Life likes to test you though, and I'm using my reserves at the moment to try and keep sight of the prize.
I'm looking forward to lots of things, and know that I'll look back on these past few months as a goodbad experience (doublethink).
You do wonder about the quality control measures in place when you watch this OFFICIALLY RELEASED promo for the Ukraine. The first 30 seconds nip in and out of tune and the camera focus is mental. I can't even remember if I like this or not. I know it doesn't make any sense.
9 Netherlands "Ikbenverliefd (Sha-la-lie)" - Sieneke (I'm in love)
A slightly mental circus opening distracts from what is a sort of catchy song but this is unlikely to turn the tides against the Netherlands bad luck/choices over the past few years.
10 Romania "Playing with Fire" - Paula Seling & Ovi
I really like the hook in this song, but there's bits that are awful and I'm not sure how I feel at the end. The video's the same: the dual piano is pretty cool, but the whole video game aspect is just desperately lacking in focus. And as usual with these Eastern European duos, they pair up a hot girl singer with some lardy bloke. "A" for effort but not for the finished product.
The damned accordions are back and they're still not welcome. This is just an embarrassment from my adopted home country. A simple "No" suffices here. Oh dear.
12 Ireland "It's for you" - NiamhKavanagh
This is actually quite pleasant and reminiscint of the type of entries that Ireland used to win with back in the 90s. Trouble is, that was 20 years ago. Nevertheless the start is right out an X-Factor winner's song, which might be a good thing. And we haven't even got to the tin whistle, making a welcome return.
13 Bulgaria "Angel si ti" - Miro (You're an angel)
This is one of my favourites, assuming he sings well which you can never judge from the video. Love the "oh-woh-woh bits", and actually the Bulgarian I don't understand but he makes me want to... there goes another Eurovision crush.
14 Cyprus "Life Looks Better in Spring" - Jon Lillygreen and the Islanders
It may well be true but I'm not feeling this song. Boring. Boring. Yawn.
15 Croatia "Lako je sve" - Feminem (Everything is easy)
Feminem represented Bosnia-Herzegovina a few years back with a decididly camp number so I was surprised to see this. Pleasantly surprised, I'm a sucker for Balkan angst and moody black and white videos.
16 Georgia "Shine" - Sopho Nizharadze
A quite nice ballad really from a quite nice singer. And I like the cleaning element of the chorus "Wipe the dust off your love". You'd never get a native English person coming up with genius lyrics like that. I'm not even sure if I'm still being sarcastic.
17 Turkey "We Could Be The Same"- maNga ="405"> These fellas are described as "the Turkish MUSE", which is not a bad comparison. However, whilst the chorus of this song is quite good and catchy; the verses are dull fillers, unlike Muse. The video is pretty cool though.
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So there we are, that's all the semi-final songs in round 2. The only five we haven't looked at are France, Germany, Spain, Norway & the UK, as they all automatically qualify for the Final. I'll get round to them though, don't worry.
So who should go through from the second semi final?
My favourites here are the ever-catchy Azerbaijan ("Drip drop drip drop"), which is tipped to win with odds of 2-1 or less. Bulgaria is a close second. Lithuania, Croatia, Georgia, Armenia and Denmark also probably deserve to go through. And as much as it pains me, Slovenia, is the least deserving country.
So after the first 17 songs that were more miss than hit in the first semi-final, we hopefully move onto a better set in Semi Final Two (broadcast 2000 CET 27/05/2010 onBBC3)
1 Lithuania "East European Funk" - InCulto
This is a cool and sometimes corny ska-influenced number to start the show, and it's a crowd pleaser... well at least the crowds of people in Lithuanian supermarkets judging from the video. There's a few references to us "all being in the EU" etc which nicely topicalise what is actually a pretty good 3 minutes. 2 Armenia "Apricot Stone" - Eve Rivas
I've listened to this a few times now and whilst I kind of like it, I still don't really understand what it's about... apricot stones from the motherland? But she sings it like it means everything, so perhaps something got lost in the translation. Then again, she does bang on about the winds affecting the harvest and her "cherished fruit" - is the apricot an Armenian equivalent of cherry I wonder...?
3 Israel "Milim" - HarelSkaat ("Words")
I think I make this comment every year, but Hebrew is not a beautiful sounding language. Although Harel is sufficiently distracting to look at that perhaps it doesn't matter.
This brilliantly-named duo are like the elder siblings of Same Difference, with more hairspray and guitars. There's nothing else sounding like this in the Contest this year, and it's pretty catchy, so who knows? But the song never gets away with the fact it is perfect for an X Factor winner. It's good, but it's not right.
5 Switzerland "IlPleutdeL'Or" Michael vonderHeide ("It's raining gold")
It's hard to not play the cheap shot and comment on the irony that a man with such prominent ears didn't listen to his own song. Oops. Seriously though, this is all a bit embarrassing, like watching your gay dad do karaoke - you have to watch but feel uncomfortable throughout.
6 Sweden "This is my life" - Anna Bergendahl
You can usually rely on Sweden to provide a catchy pop tune with some kind of dance routine, so you spend the 3 minutes of this track waiting for sequinned dancers, or a back beat to emerge on this, but it never happens. Once you've got over that, it's an okay guitar ballad, akin to Delta Goodrem I suppose, but not really stand out. I guess I'm just used to better things from Sweden. Disappointing.
7 Azerbaijan "Drip Drop" - Safura
And so onto the favourite. And it's easy to see why. Forget the snide "it's not even in Europe", we're going to Baku next year if Safura pulls this off. It's a great, contemporary bittersweet ballad, with minimal translation issues and relatively gimmick-free. Altogether now... "Drip drop drip drop, wa-oh wa-oh...". Lovely.
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