August Bank Holiday - Update on the Pissporeids

Through the citified light of roof top london I saw one spectacular shooting star - a vapour trail after image etched on the inside of the eye - and that was it. So much for the Perseids... and the Leonids, and Halley's comet, and Telstar and the Kohoutek comet and all the rest of the no-show bastards of antiquity.

Well, almost - the Hale-Bopp comet delivered, hanging in the sky for months with a fiery silver tail over Bruno Allordi's Accordion shop. Gone now - both of them.


( Childhood cluster on the undressed splintery pine vertigo of the old fire escape in Ivanhoe Road waiting for Sputnik or somesuch to pass over, freezing incomprehension circa 1957. My father, "Is that it?" "No, its a plane"... hopes raised and dashed in zeitgeist rhythm, a consistent tradition of natural disappointment )

Hence my lack of surprise at the discovery of a huge immeasurable void close to earth (see below). It just confirmed all my previous experience. So much for the promise of outer space.

Meanwhile, here on earth I hear the greatest performance of Mahler's 3rd Symphony I'm ever likely to at the Albert Hall on Wednesday. Claudio Abbado and the Lucerne Festival orchestra (plus Anna Larsson to sing Neitzsche's "O, Mensch"). Then, Friday, I hear Pierre-Laurent Aimard play Ligeti's piano studies - he turned the piano into an instrument of awe and terror culminating in "the devil's staircase" which left the whole hall spellbound as the basso profundo thunderous climax ebbed away into a breath-held silence.

Then, this morning, up to Hampstead Heath for a similiarly terror-inducing dive into the rain-replenished freezing (slight exaggeration - 17'C 63' F) depths of the almost empty men's pond.

So, to alleviate the mindnumbing horror of the expanding void - a picture of Rupert and Sue

Great 'cosmic nothingness' found

Astronomers have found an enormous void in space that measures nearly a billion light-years across.
It is empty of both normal matter - such as galaxies and stars - and the mysterious "dark matter" that cannot be seen directly with telescopes.
The "hole" is located in the direction of the Eridanus constellation and has been identified in data from a survey of the sky made at radio wavelengths.
The discovery will be reported in a paper in the Astrophysical Journal.
Previous sky surveys that have traced the large-scale structure of the nearby Universe have long shown, for example, how the clustering of galaxies is strung into vast filaments and sheets that are separated by great gaps.
But the void discovered by a University of Minnesota team is about 1,000 times the volume of what would be expected in typical cosmic gaps.
"It's hard even for astronomers to picture how big these things are," conceded Minnesota's Professor Lawrence Rudnick.
"If you were to travel at the speed of light, it would take you several years to get to the nearest stars in our own Milky Way galaxy; but if you were to go to this hole and enter one side, you'd have to travel for a billion years before you would get to the other side," he told BBC News.
The void is roughly 6-10 billion light-years away and takes a sizeable chunk out of the visible Universe in its direction.
Dark evidence
The team used data from the US National Radio Astronomy Observatory's VLA Sky Survey (NVSS) to make its discovery. The VLA - which stands for Very Large Array - is a collection of 27 radio telescopes in New Mexico.
The finding is said to fit neatly with observations of the Universe's "oldest light" - the famous Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation, the study of which has earned several scientists the Nobel Prize.
This is the radiation that comes from just 380,000 years after the Big Bang when the Universe had cooled to such a degree that hydrogen atoms could exist. Before that time, scientists say, the Universe would have been so hot that matter and light would have been "coupled" - the cosmos would have been opaque.

THE CMB - OLD AND COLD

Nasa Probes have mapped the Cosmic Microwave Background which is all around us in space
This radiation from the infant Universe shines at weak radio (microwave) wavelengths
The maps show up tiny temperature fluctuations - the mottled colours above
These fluctuations correspond to the early distribution of matter in the fledgling cosmos
Nasa's WMap satellite sees a cold spot lying in the path of the newly found void

'Ancient light' takes Nobel

Today, this light shines at microwave wavelengths at a frigid -270C; and observations of the CMB made by Nasa's Wilkinson Microwave Anisotopy Probe show a particular "cold spot" in the direction of the newly identified void.
The explanation for this may lie in the enigmatic "dark energy" that scientists know so little about but which is said to be accelerating the expansion of the Universe.
Light particles passing through the void would be expected to lose a little more energy than those passing through space cluttered with matter - if dark energy is stretching the Universe apart at a faster and faster rate.
Scientists refer to this as the Integrated Sachs-Wolfe Effect and a corresponding "warm spot" in the CMB associated with an area of space dominated by a supercluster of galaxies was identified some years ago.
"In essence, this latest study gives us a very elegant demonstration of the existence of dark energy in a way which is very convincing," commented Professor Carlos Frenk, the director of the Institute for Computational Cosmology at Durham University, UK.
"We keep getting evidence for dark energy, this component of the Universe which is so dominant, and yet we still have only a tiny glimmer of what it could be."
The reason the void exists is not known. "That's going to be a challenge for people that work on the development of structure in the Universe. It's a very hot topic in the cosmology right now," said Professor Rudnick.

Perseids in anticipation

Well, Its 9.30pm BST and the sky is clear. The meteors should begin to appear from 10pm in the north east. My son's opening the trapdoor so we can watch from the comparative darkness of the walled flat roof. Meanwhile a petrified forest of cypresses found in an opencast coal mine in Hungary - 8 million years old. Thats what triggered the poem about the vanished eskimaux - oh yeah, and Tony Wilson RIP. Sometimes when I'm panicking about the minutiae of here I need these events to drip some perspective into my life. Serves to remind me our lives are a flicker in the vast gulfs between things. In the words of Herman Melville "More of these matters later". Now up to see the shooting stars while Sue and Adam watch "Big Brother" below. Its 10 to 10... 10 minutes to go!

Fear of Work

He realised as he listened to the overture from Tannhauser and read the liner notes that Wagner was 53 when he wrote Siegfried’s Idyll... and that he was 53. What it meant he knew not but, somehow, derived some borrowed glory from it.


“Therefore, I am...” he pondered, “I am what? He? Him?" (confused) Siegfried?"
How quickly", he mused, somewhat clumsily, "we seek us in there – that is ... ourselves".

“I was in the kitchen when he was shot, burned, beheaded, drowned. Yes, I thought... that’s it then... When the wave struck I was upstairs and couldn’t remember why I’d gone up there, stood perplexed in the cluttered room. Then, later, as the tragedy unfolded, remembered and reflected, thought and saw, pondered on the sixth sense that had caused me to head for higher ground and thus ensured my survival.

I took comfort and reassurance from this simple incontrovertible fact. In the dawning realisation that - No, I was not stupid or indeed senile but simply possessed of the wonderful gift of prescience. It has to be said, I was in England at the time. However, the impulse was sound even if the geography was not.”

4.30pm Sunday... So much for Gotterdammerung at the Albert Hall - it started 1/2 an hour ago. Still, part of me's slightly relieved - 5 hrs for the performance and 2 intervals lasting 1hr and 1/2 hr respectively. Nearly 7 hours standing. I saw it last year at the Royal Opera House from a decent seat, Lisa Gasteen as Brunhilde so I doubt even that I'm ready to hear it again. Perhaps in another 10 years.

We spent the morning picnicking and reading books by the river Lea - me revisiting "Junky", well, at least the introduction (Ginsberg). Seems I can only read for a page or so nowadays then I lose interest. I've agreed to work 3 days at the Island Day Programme this week and its hard not to curse myself for my jingoistic eagerness in volunteering next weeks Nick for the Passchendaele hell of primary treatment.

The unit and its team are beyond reproach, the clients, too, are blameless. I've just reached the point once more where I cannot work in a rehab (No! No! No!) but I'm too tight or economically insecure to refuse the work. So I'm making a commitment to myself to do 5 more days and thats it. Two weeks in Turkey then the rest of September to find something new and extend my private practice.

Suddenly the Sunday shadow of the fear of work begins to lift and ennui gives way to energy - so much so that I'm gonna have a justified hour in bed contemplating the infinite vistas of my new-found freedom.

PS I never got my mirror either.

Sunday 11th August 2007

About to head out into the adventure that is Sunday in London. This evening, Gotterdamerung on the proms - 5 hours, unstaged, sung in german. I'll be standing in the arena, just to be sure I get the full affekt.

First, the Redcorn scrapyard at Tottenham for the pre-MOT annual search for the smashed Fiesta door mirror. Meanwhile, a peculiarly apposite poem.


Lament for the Dorsets
(Eskimos extinct in the 14th century A.D.)

Animal bones and some mossy tent rings
scrapers and spearheads carved ivory swans
all that remains of the Dorset giants
who drove the Vikings back to their long ships
talked to spirits of earth and water
– a picture of terrifying old men
so large they broke the backs of bears
so small they lurk behind bone rafters
in the brain of modern hunters
among good thoughts and warm things
and come out at night
to spit on the stars

The big men with clever fingers
who had no dogs and hauled their sleds
over the frozen northern oceans
awkward giants
..........................killers of seal
they couldn’t compete with the little men
who came from the west with dogs
Or else in a warm climatic cycle
The seals went back to cold waters
and the puzzled Dorsets scratched their heads
with hairy thumbs around 1350 A.D.
– couldn’t figure it out
went around saying to each other
plaintively
..............'What’s wrong? What happened?
..............Where are the seals gone?’
And died

Twentieth century people
apartment dwellers
executives of neon death
warmakers with things that explode
– they have never imagined us in their future
how could we imagine them in the past
squatting among the moving glaciers
six hundred years ago
with glowing lamps?
As remote or nearly
as the trilobites and swamps
when coal became
or the last great reptile hissed
at a mammal the size of a mouse
that squeaked and fled

Did they realize at all
what was happening to them?
Some old hunter with one lame leg
a bear had chewed
Sitting in a caribou skin tent
– the last Dorset?
Let’s say his name was Kudluk
carving 2-inch ivory swans
for a dead grand-daughter
taking them out of his mind
the places in his mind
where pictures are
He selects a sharp stone tool
to gouge a parallel pattern of lines
on both sides of the swan
holding it with his left hand
bearing down and transmitting
his body’s weight
from brain to arm and right hand
and one of his thoughts
turns to ivory
The carving is laid aside
in beginning darkness
at the end of hunger
after a while wind
blows down the tent and snow
begins to cover him

After 600 years
the ivory thought
is still warm
© Al Purdy, 2000

Vertex VX 950 PROVE 2 Hep C Trial Conclusion

Quick factual update - unfortunately the low positive on the 85th and final day of treatment was a presage of things to come. The virus came back with a vengeance (1,450,000 IU/ml) one month later. On Thursday 14th June I discussed it with the Professor and elected to wait until (and if) the new treatment is licensed in 3 or 4 years' time or so before I try treatment again (as long as my LFT's don't go through the roof, ie 200 or above). I had a fibroscan while I was there(a non-invasive biopsy) which confirmed mild fibrosis. My latest Liver Function Tests read -

ALT 102
AST 85
HCV RNA 757,969 IU/ml.

Pre-treatment (Dec '06) they were 162 and 129 respectively.

My conclusions? The VX950 clearly worked and was a massive improvement on current standard of care treatment consisting of interferon and ribavarin alone but suppressed rather than eliminated some variants of the virus.

It needs the ribavarin to eliminate these variants - and it needs longer. I've no doubt that if I'd been able to consolidate my earlier apparent clearance of the virus with another 6 months of conventional SOC Peg/Rib treatment I'd be genuinely clear. Initially I was emotionally over-invested in the Vertex... bought into the excessive cure-all hype... 'cause I wanted to believe. But now, from the sober perspective of 4 months on, despite the initial disappointment of the viral return, I'm glad I got the opportunity to take part in the trial. What I gained was a wealth of information, not just about the mechanics of the virus but also about myself - a modest lesson in stoicism.

I had negligible side-effects during and after treatment (none from the VX950) and remain in good health with improved liver function. My treatment at the Hampstead Royal Free Hospital was (and remains) superb. And, although it was never my first priority, I'm experiencing the novel glow of altruism (thrust upon me so to speak) having - albeit unwittingly - infinitesimally increased the pool of available information about hepatitus C.

If the result of these trials is an effective 6 month treatment for people with genotype 1a/1b hep c (with or without Ribavarin)- a result that currently appears highly likely - then Vertex will have achieved a major breakthrough in the treatment of Hep C that could spell the difference between life and death for thousands of people. If the result is simply a more effective 12 month treatment with improved outcomes... the same applies; though having analysed all the available information, my money's on the former, ie 6 months Peg/Riba plus 12 weeks VX 950 with massively improved outcomes for genotype 1a/1b sufferers. Having said that, thats my last word on Hep C for the next few years. Best of luck to all my fellow trial participants.

Now out into a late summer london basking in glorious sunshine leavened by a cooling breeze. I'm off work, and its Friday!