Covid-19 vaccine (2)

As opposed to the autumnal weather of yesterday, when the outside temperature reached a high of 11°C, today is warm and sunny, 20°C. Great weather for a walk.

I was pottering around this morning at home when my wife announced that someone had posted on one of the kibbutz Whatsapp groups that the vaccination centre in the local town was empty and waiting for customers. Within a few minutes we were in the car, heading for the town.

As announced, the 'centre' (really a large room with partitions) was empty of people being vaccinated, so swiftly we had our personal data noted, answered the standard questions about feeling well, etc, received warnings about possible side effects then had the vaccination. Despite the size of the syringe and the needle, the actual penetration of the skin and insertion into the shoulder muscle was barely felt.

After waiting 15 minutes outside of the room in order to ensure that there were no immediate side effects, it was back home ... and to a great feeling of relief.

I thought that booking an appointment for Sunday evening would put us at the vanguard of the people being vaccinated, but this morning I spoke to a few people on the kibbutz, all older than me, and they had all been vaccinated; I was slightly miffed. On the other hand, someone at work who is older than me but lives in a town in the north of Israel received an appointment for the middle of January.

According to the local news, Israel is first place in the world with regard to the number of people vaccinated per 100 residents. It's amusing to note that a week ago people were worried about the vaccine and were vacillating as whether to have it; now everybody is rushing to be vaccinated!

We receive a second dose in a month's time, and the health authorities reckon that by March they will be able to remove many of the restrictions in place. Let's hope that this is so.

High blood pressure

Two and a half months ago, I wrote "Of course, I also have to monitor my blood pressure: if it starts rising then I will have to see my GP who will recommend new medication. It will be very easy to see whether his [the cardiologist] opinion is correct.". Well, the swelling in my legs disappeared after a few days but my blood pressure shot up and these days is around 160/100, which is far too high!

I have seen my GP a few times and she has been trying out different combinations of medications in order to reduce my blood pressure. So far, nothing seems to have worked, including the previous medication that I was taking (apart from the one that caused the swelling). In return, I've been suffering from bad headaches about every other day; sometimes my migraine medication works and reduces the headache, but more often than not I am stuck with a headache for hours. 

As a result of the combination of headaches and blood pressure, I have noticed that my level of patience has been reduced to about zero, which is making my daily work problematic. I can no longer accept the failings of my fellow workers, whether it is the noise that they make (when I am in the factory) or their inability to think for themselves.

In order to reduce this stress, I decided (along with the advice from my manager) to work a few days from home. Last night, the Israeli government decided on another lock-down to start from Sunday evening (just when I'm about to be vaccinated!) so in a sense I'm simply starting the lock-down a few days earlier. The only real advantage that I have in working in the factory is that I have easy access to a printer, but as I rarely print documents, this sole advantage is completely outweighed by all the disadvantages.

Not only that, yesterday it started raining and hasn't really stopped yet (although the rain is far from continuous). As a result, I am once again sitting by the dining room table surrounded by computers and looking out of the window at the view of the kumquat tree which is currently flowering.

Here is a picture of my view: very autumnal. At the moment, the only thing that I want to is to get rid of these headaches that might be a function of the high blood pressure (this is folk wisdom; it hasn't been proved that high blood pressure causes headaches). Once the blood pressure is lowered, there is a good chance that I will become more patient and more able to suffer the niggles of everyday life.

Of course, we will still be locked down, high blood pressure or not, so I will be saving myself the annoyances connected to my physical workplace in the factory.

Covid-19 vaccine!

A few weeks ago, it seemed that Israel was managing to keep the second wave of Covid-19 infections under control, but since then, the daily number of new infections has been steadily increasing. The threat of 'the British mutation' that spreads faster than the 'original' version will only serve to increase the number of new infections. Thus we have been following closely the news about the vaccine.

They say that 3.8 million doses will arrive in Israel by the end of the month (which is next week), enough for 1.9 million people to be vaccinated. The first in line are the health services, then people in old age homes and then people over 60 (yeah!). Of course, the first person to be vaccinated was our Prime Minister (hopefully not for much longer) on Saturday evening. Since then, we've been hearing various reports about the availability of the vaccine.

The news yesterday evening carried out a comparison between the four national health funds as to when one can make an appointment. I don't want to get into an explanation of the different health funds so accept the explanation that it's like there are four National Health Services running side by side. One health fund is already vaccinating, two others are giving appointments for the next few days whereas my health fund is giving appointments from mid-January to February; naturally, this health fund is the biggest and hence the slowest. I said to my wife that they will no doubt decrease the waiting time after this public shaming.

So I wasn't too surprised this morning when the kibbutz nurse issued a notice that our health fund is now accepting appointments for a central clinic in the local town. I tried first of all via the normal telephone number but of course no one answered; there was a pre-recorded message that suggested to make an appointment via their web site.

At first the web site didn't respond, but after a refresh, I was able to make an appointment (the first available) for Sunday evening. My wife came in a bit later and I made an appointment for her about half an hour later. Hopefully we will be able to be vaccinated at the same time.

Next update on Monday.....

 

John Le Carré (1931-2020)

I first became aware of John Le Carré in the summer of 1975 when I spent a few months in Israel. Someone gave me a copy of "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" (TTSS) to read and I found it very intriguing. True, there was a fair amount of the book that I found difficult to digest, spy novels not being a genre that I was familiar with at the time, but the general style and level of invention was engrossing. When I returned home, I presumably bought my own copy and began reading it until deeper understanding descended upon me. I hate to think how many times I have read this book since, or how much time I have devoted to developing a complete understanding (not to say that the time was wasted, but rather enjoyable).

The next Le Carré book that I read was the atypical "Naive and Sentimental Lover"; I don't recall now how I found out about this book but I remember reading it on the way to Winter Activities (as we called the winter Habonim camp) in 1976 where I was to spend a week cooking [I think that I saw a copy at a newsagents in the railway station]. For some reason, I travelled there alone which makes me wonder now what I was doing in the days previous to that journey. Anyway, the book had me scratching my head as it was completely different to TTSS. I doubt that I have read this book the whole way through more than two or three times.

Getting back on track, the next Le Carré book was "The honourable schoolboy", which I purchased at Heathrow Airport on the way to my first trip to America in August 1978. This book accompanied me on all of my travels for the next three weeks, even when it wasn't necessarily suitable reading. I have gone through this book several times and found parts of it - especially Jerry's covering of the South Asian wars - hard going. I still don't completely understand the hidden message of the ending.

I emigrated a few weeks after returning from America, so from here on my sources became somewhat limited. I picked up some of the earlier books in a second hand book shop in Rehovot that I frequented at the time, including the infamous "Spy who came in from the cold" (TSWCIFTC), which I didn't appreciate sufficiently at the time. I'm still not sure whether the point of "The looking glass war" was an attempt by the Circus to get rid of its competitors. The books prior to TTSS are set in the 1960s (if not earlier) and so seem to take place in an alternative universe: so many things have changed since then (I mean things like social levels, restaurants, bars, etc) that I find it hard to relate to these books. TSWCIFTC is much better than the other two books and displays the tortured story line development that TTSS has (nothing is what it seems to be on the surface).

I recall that my Israeli newspaper of the time published a few advance chapters of "Smiley's People" (in Hebrew) so I was familiar with some of the background to the story and didn't find it as complicated as its predecessors. This book is definitely simpler than TTSS.

From hereon, I would buy each book as it appeared; most of them I read once or twice without engaging with them, but there are two standout books from this period, "The little drummer girl" and "The night manager". Both of these I have read many times, both of these have been converted into TV series and I have commented several times on them. What amazes me about these two books is the amount of invention that occurs; they are such rich books, not only in terms of their literary style but also the events that are described and the thinking that created those events. 

That said, there has always seemed to be one false note about TLDG: when did planning this operation begin? The book starts with a bombing in West Germany that is supposed to be the initial event, but the whole story of Charlie at the weekend seminars took place at least a year previously. Was it really Michel who spoke at one seminar or a plant? The time line of events prior to the bombing seems a bit woolly to me (maybe it's my lack of understanding).

In recent years, there was the autobiographical "Pigeon Tunnel" and the biography that I read six months ago. In recent years, there were the intriguing "Legacy of spies" (classic Le Carré that has to be read after TSWCIFTC) along with the less classic "Agent running in the field".

Apart from the exquisite planning, what I have always liked about these books is the rich writing style. There will be no more but there is plenty enough to satisfy everybody. I see that I have written about JLC only 15 times over the past 14 years, but I can assure any reader that JLC is one of my favourite authors, along with David Lodge and Robert Silverberg. All three have stopped writing, but all three possess invention along with an eloquent writing style, so that reading their books is always a pleasure.

[Edit] Grrrh! How could I forget "A perfect spy"? Especially since it's so autobiographical. I also enjoy "The Russia house", but to be honest, I prefer the film to the book in this case. 

How could I have known? (new song)

This song was partially inspired by 'The Undoing' TV series that is in itself based vaguely on the book 'You should have known'. I thought that it would be an interesting exercise to write from the viewpoint of Grace, the titular wife and mother who should have known.

I started off with what I thought was the chorus three weeks ago, but this was not much more than a false start; the main idea that remained was that the song be in 3/4 time. Two weeks ago I changed slightly the chord sequence for the 'chorus' which meant that the verse music had to be completely rewritten (the chorus ended on E and the verse started with A minor; now the chorus ended on B and the verse had to start in E minor). Last Friday I was playing around with the song and wrote the verse and the tune, which was centered around the note B; the chord sequence was Em Dm C F, so the B is initially the fifth then the sixth then the major seventh then the augmented fourth: interesting harmonies. 

I began sequencing the song with these chords and tune; I added a middle section with a rising bass - B (over Em), C (C), C# (A7), D (Em7). During the week I worked on an arrangement which still was fairly basic. Yesterday I had the time to start writing the words; during the week I had been thinking about the opening 'statement', and once this was down, the rest of the words came fairly quickly, although I changed a few here and there during the next few hours. The arrangement also became finalised, meaning that it was time to record vocals.

These required a few takes but in the end I had what I originally thought would be the vocal track. Listening back to it again this morning, I decided that it wasn't confident enough and certainly was too 'polite', a failure of most of my work. I didn't have a chance to do much about this during the day except think how I could make it less polite. The answer was to sing it angrily, as someone would be who had been duped in the fashion of the book. This evening I got the chance to sing it, as loud and as angrily as possible; I feared that I had recorded the vocal with too high a level, thus leading to distortion, but this worked quite well: slightly distorted and certainly not polite! I didn't bother with autotune as the vocal was near enough in tune throughout, and the autotune would probably diminish the impact. One take, albeit with a punch-in at the beginning, and it was nailed. A few mixes later and I had a completed product.

Unlike some of my songs, I don't mind publishing the lyrics here

How could I have known?
How could I have known?
True, there were no signs
Not even a hint
Nothing was out of place
You said that life was just fine
You were happy with me
The sun shone upon us both
You had me duped

How can love remain?
Should our love remain?
I thought you were true
But in the end
You have betrayed me so
You took me for a fool
Whilst playing the field
Leaving me on my own
You told me lies

Always a face for each person you knew with a 
Separate face kept for me
Recalling each one took a fair bit of skill but now
You’ve been revealed as a freak

Where does that leave me?
What choices do I see?
I’m left on my own,
Wondering how
I can restore my life
Trust has been destroyed
Certainty lost
Leaving me bruised and scarred
I stand alone

In terms of arrangements, I notice that of late there aren't instrumental 'fills' every four bars; in fact, there are no instrumental lead lines throughout the verses. In other words, the arrangements are much less 'busy' than my earlier efforts, which now seem somewhat overdone.

Train journey

I was persuaded (coerced?) into travelling to Tel Aviv yesterday in order to induct a new employee. This is the first time that I have travelled by rail in the past nine months. I deliberately set off late (8:50 am - that's three hours later than my usual travelling time) so that there wouldn't be many people on the train. And indeed there weren't. One has to make a reservation for a particular train in advance (but no more than 48 hours in advance) so that the railway company can be sure that there aren't too many people travelling on each train. The compartment in which I set can hold somewhere around 80 people, I think. Yesterday there were four people in it. 

Because I travelled at a non-peak hour, I had to wait for 50 minutes for a connecting train, instead of the normal 5-10 minutes which was very annoying. Coming back, I had to wait for a 'mere' 20 minutes, but there were more people on the train. One has to wear a mask all the time in the stations and on the train, of course. One is also not allowed to eat on the train (I started eating a pear but was cautioned not to do so by the conductor).

Verdict? It's definitely possible to travel by train but at the moment there's no overwhelming reason to do so.

Viva result

As I noted in an earlier blog, there are five possible outcomes of the viva:

1. to award the degree as is
2. to award the degree subject to minor amendments 
3. to require resubmission of the thesis with major amendments without a further viva 
4. to require resubmission of the thesis with major amendments with a further viva  
5. to fail the candidate.

Of these outcomes, the final one should never happen as the supervisor should only recommend the candidate to submit the thesis when it is complete in the supervisor's opinion. Failed theses are the supervisor's fault! The first outcome is very rare whereas the second is the most common. Of course, this outcome is the one that I expect like to have for my thesis.

Now onto the viva. My supervisor (who was 'present' during the entire Teams meeting but was not allowed to talk) said that I acquitted myself well: I wasn't belligerent, I didn't freeze, I didn't waffle and I didn't bluff. But as I have tried to say in the past, the viva is not examining 'me' but rather examining the thesis: why did you do this and why didn't you do that?

I was prepared for that type of question, but I wasn't prepared for the depth of some of the questions. For example, chapter 2 talks about ERP systems: it gives background, reasons for adopting ERP, the ERP life style, comparison of four systems and material on 'horizontal' software. For some reason, the external examiner thought that this was part of the literature review; no, I said, it's to give background. One can't talk about enhancing ERP systems without knowing what an ERP system is. Why did you only compare four systems? Maybe the material on horizontal software is not relevant? I explained why I chose those four systems; I also explained that I felt that if I had left out some of this material, I would have been asked why it wasn't there. You can't win either way.

To cut a long story short, the verdict on the thesis centered on two issues. The framework for developing and deploying enhancements appears "like a rabbit from a magician's hat" (as I put if after the examiners had had their pound of flesh) and does not follow on logically from the literature review. The methodology was not sufficient for their liking, lacking a validity stage.

I was given the worst possible result (apart from failure): either accept a lesser, compensatory, Master of Research degree (that no one has ever heard of, along with a loss of pride) or resubmit the thesis with major amendments, including obtaining new data on the basis of a revised methodology, followed by a further viva. There is no guarantee of passing even after this, and failure here means complete failure (probably with the compensatory degree).

I was stunned; my supervisor was also surprised. My initial comment was why didn't the research committee and the final review pick up on these topics? After the viva finished, my supervisor and myself had a brief chat via Skype; obviously no decisions should be made until the examiners' report is received. He thinks that I should be able to finish the necessary work in under a year.

I took the dog for a walk and considered my position. The best way of looking at things is that I have submitted my thesis to another research committee review and it has been found wanting. The examiners will present a report of what needs to be fixed, so I can work according to this report and create a new thesis that should answer their requirements.

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.

[Addendum] I neglected to write that the examiners thought that the topic was very interesting and (for some reason) timely. What they didn't say (in my words as I am assuming this) is that it's a shame that it was ruined by poor methodology.

About the research committee: the document that they saw was upto and including the literary review and synthesis along with a certain amount about the pilot study that had yet to take place. If there is any blame to be placed, it is on the review from a year ago. But even then, the reviewer did not see a document resembling the final thesis, which had doubled in size over the past year.

E-hour minus 4

My doctoral viva will start in another four hours. There isn't very much that I can do in terms of preparing material; it's more a question of being in the correct frame of mind. At today is the first of the month, I had several monthly reports to prepare, but as soon as I finished them (remarkably early) at 9:30 am, I came home.

I have just returned from taking the dog for a walk; my headphones were playing songs by Peter Hammill, and as I completed the walk, the song 'Confidence' began. A remarkable co-incidence! Times have changed somewhat since March 2011.

I'm going to read my DBA blogs to get me in the right mood, then I'm going to reread the thesis for what is probably the thousandth time. It certainly won't be for the last time as I assume that the examiners will require some changes, hopefully only minor.