Ever heard of Lie Bumps?

Have you ever heard of lie bumps? Until a week a go I hadn't and neither had my doctors. It took me a good Google and Wiki to track them down but they have made the start of 2012 memorable in a nasty unpleasant way.

Lie bumps or Transient lingual papillittis as they a officially known are infected taste buds that are all over your tongue. You probably have experienced that annoying enlarged bobble that suddenly arrives on your tongue and is so annoying that eventually you get your teeth around it and bite it off and indeed this is an old wives's cure not officially sanctioned.

My lie bumps arrived this week on Tuesday night to be exact with a bout of wretching in the middle of the night. Never be ill on a public holiday. The medical system comes to a complete stop. I did go to the all night emergency but at that time there was nothing to see. All changed over the next few days.

It was not until Thursday that I noticed these strange, extremely sore and sensitive lumps on the back of my tongue. By this time my right ear was infected. I saw a female doctor and she was puzzled but I said I had researched on Wiki and I think I knew what they were. If you tried this with a male doctor you would get short shrift! She looked it up and agreed.

They are not dangerous and should go away but I have lots of them, hence the infected ear and worst of all I can hardly eat. The pain is excruciating! The nearest thing I can give as a example is shingels in the mouth. The antibiotics for the ear will not cure the virus based lie bumps and have given me tinnitus as well, sounded like a police siren but fortunately this has stopped.

It seems the lie bumps take 15 days to clear. I shall be a skelington by then!

So not a great start to 2012. Trust me to get something unusual!

Update Friday 29 June 2012

Six months later I feel I must write a postscript for anyone reading this and it has surprisingly been one of my most viewed blogs.

Yes lie lumps are harmless but they could indicate something that if allowed to continue could kill you and today many doctors fail to recognize the symptoms namely lie lumps and a sore tongue can be a sign of Vitamin B12 deficiency or Pernicious Anemia. In India B12 deficiency is the first thing a Doctor thinks of.

I had B12 deficiency. I became ill in December 2011 but it took till February 2012  till my GP did a blood test. This test might never have been done. What might have followed is to awful to contemplate and it is it has taken 6 months to sort of recover as it is. It has been most unpleasant.

My suggestion is if you experience lie lumps have a B12 blood test. I cannot harm you and it may save you a life of misery.

Janette The Woman in a Dressing Gown

When my friends or strangers knock on my door and I do not expect them they are likely to find me in my dressing gown. They are shocked! It seems to their normal conservative lives that living in a dressing gown qualifies one in the slut category. A woman in a dressing gown is beyond saving.

I have given up trying to explain that professional performing artists live in their dressing gowns. For us it is the norm. Sitting around for hours in cold theaters and film sets with tissues draped over every white collar and cuff to keep the make up off the costumes or getting ready in one's cold dressing room in Bradford a good warm cuddly dressing gown is a tool of the trade.

To me a dressing gown is the real me. I have lived in one nearly all my life. When I go out I put on my going out costume or for normal people my everyday dress but my dressing gown is what I live in all day.

This wasn't always the case. When I was young there was a war and clothing coupons so I did not get a real dressing gown until I went to Aldeburgh, my first job away when I was 15. I was so thrilled but I bought a cotton one which for UK was not warm enough for sitting about in freezing churches at 10 pm and it was too long so it got wet on the muddy paths on the way from the dressing rooms 100 yard away in the rectory. I learned my lesson after that. Since then all my dressing gowns have been short, very warm and when in the theatre a shade of peach so as not to show the powder. Now I favor black!

It was at my ballet school, Arts Educational Schools in London, where the importance of a dressing gown was forcefully drummed into me. The little ballet dancers had to don a housecoat to move from class to class. It was forbidden to appear in ballet practice gear in any other place other than the studio. Our housecoats were very unglamorous, a nasty shade of grey cotton with a tight bright blue web belt that was a torture to wear.

I think my favorite dressing gown time was during the interval between shows in London musicals on Saturdays. For me this was a magical time. Food was shipped in from the Act 1 Scene 1 cafe and I just loved their jam doughnuts. We used to visit each other in the dressing rooms which were warm and cosy with the light bulbs around the mirrors and the delicious smell of make up. We never got fat. One dressing room I was allotted in The Cambridge Theatre was 72 stairs up and the lift wasn't working. On a matinee day I climbed the Post Office Tower twice. When I caught a cold my dresser had to bring my costumes downstairs.

And so began my life in a dressing gown which still lingers to this day. It is so comfortable and I am not going to give it up! So next time you call to see me unannounced do not be surprised to find me in my dressing gown.

Happy New Year 2012

A New Year has dawned. 2012 has arrived in a blaze of downpours. We have been deluged in Auckland and I believe Christchurch has been hit with yet another earthquake. They happen so frequently these days that everyone is rather blaze about them. 'Oh yes, only 5.9 nothing to get excited about'.

2011 was so wonderful that the thought of 2012 scares me a bit. Being of a mature age  every day is now a gift so I have to use my time wisely. I have decided to start a separate blog Janette Miller's Strange Life where I am going to write about some of the strange events that have colored my life. I did not ask for any of this. I should have preferred a more normal existence but it was not to be.

The reason I am writing this is mainly for my grand daughter who I shall never really get to know. I want her to at least know a bit about the real me. In my blogs I am franker than I am in real life as I do hold what many many consider extreme positions on some subjects that socially should never be mentioned and in real life I don't but in my Strange Life Blog I shall. I am too old now to worry about  being cut off Christmas Card lists.

Doing it this way makes me do it but this blog is not going to be my major project for 2012. My DVD of Schubert's 'Die Winterreise' is Project numero uno! I have recorded the 24 Songs again. I did them in a sound studio just before my husband Miles died and you can see his appreciation here . But we did it in two one hour sessions and on the latter Miles was very ill so the 24 songs were by no means perfect. Neither of us were at our best. His last comments on leaving the studio were that 'Someone could put the wrong bits right' and ten years later much to his surprise I can. I am doing the cycle as my own personal Winter Journey. Traditionalists can ignore it but Schubert Songs are so approachable they can be reinterpreted ad infinitum.

For relief I am going to make a food DVD with the help of the artistry of my local butcher. He is a real butcher and I like real food. The way my butcher butchers a  lamb carcass in ten  minutes is sheer magic and like bookbinding a dying craft.

Of course there is my garden to consider. It is so easy to manage  as it looks after itself but I am going to go for more lilies and gladdies next year so I have to plan ahead.

Then there is my novel, yes I have written one of those and my short stories that I intend to self publish this year. The novel is teamed with a CD, a chapter a song and I still have to do some work on that to make it fit.

With all those projects I shall be kept busy for a year and I don't expect to finish them all but it is important at my age to have a project on the go. In my experience them without projects die!

Lastly I intend to take two short holidays one in Rotorua to film some mud pools and if I have time I have a go at upgrading my web site as it looks awful on Google Chrome and I dread to think what it looks like on an iPad. but I have to upgrade my Adobe Suite and that is expensive and may have to be put off. It also will take months as Web designing is challenging.

But you never know with life! At my age I may not be here. Will I live to see the Olympic Games in London? Oh I do hope so. I am going to give it my best shot.

Goodbye 2011 from Janette Miller

Last day of 2011. I loved it! Best year I have had since 2002 so it is a time to reflect and think how lucky I am to have managed to get this far.

Back in 2002 when I became so ill that I nearly died I would have given my eye teeth for just one day of 2011. Clostridium Difficile plus Giardia plus the horrific death of my husband and the subsequent effects of Benzodiazepine, tricyclics and Vancomycin had left me a physical mess but alive.

Fortunately not a mental mess although the drugs had wrecked my nervous system and my internal organs. I was like a canackered apple perfect on the outside and rotten to the core. I did not know how to live through one day let alone survive 10 years! If anyone had told me that I would see 2012 I would not have believed them.

But I have! Although I shall never be back to my old healthy self my life is now more or less normal. My head no longer spins continually, my balance is back and I can wait in queues in the supermarket. I have gone from misery to comfortable. I was lucky most in my situation do not live. 30 sufferers that I knew died. One man in the USA was so nice. I spoke to him on the phone. He was so desperate he hung himself in the garage.

Now I can sleep all night and if I am careful I can eat what I want but still I regret nothing beginning with C like citrus, curry and coffee.

Some things will never be normal for me again. My lack of an immune system  really means I have to live alone to avoid bugs. I do not enjoy it but it gives me the time to do the things I love. Wagner said the greatest threat to creativity was the pram in the hall!   I am fortunate to have plenty of time to myself to learn how to use the technology that is necessary to be part of the world today. I can and do take part. I learned to sing again without an accompanist.

I have lost one or two dear friends to death this year and my daughter had a lousy time with death and earthquakes too. Because we live so far apart I was very little help but even so this year has been memorable as you can see from the above.

I should love to share my life with more people in real life but I do my best with YouTube and Facebook and of course this blog. Here I can be franker than I am in real life. I have it printed out each year for my grand daughter who I hardly see, again mostly because I cannot travel, so that she can know something of her 'strange' granny.

But even with all my problems I am lucky. To an outsider my life looks pretty good and it is but let me assure you all not one of you would want to go through my last ten years to achieve what I have today.

Lastly my greatest friend is my garden. It has never given up on me or I on it. I have loved it and it has repaid my efforts of 37 years. I think it is my greatest achievement.

So onto to 2012. From now on I live through dangerous territory but at least I have lived.

Happy New Year to all.

A Disgraceful Year with The English National Ballet

In 1947 when I was four I watched the opening of Belsen on BBC Television. It put me off God for life. I knew at that moment that any God who allowed those horrors was no God of mine.

Last night I had the same revulsion to ballet after watching The Agony and the Ecstasy: The English National Ballet I found the content of whole series appalling and disgraceful. According to this series the way the company was managed appeared to be amateur and cruel and I am surprised  that Wayne Eagling remains the artistic director and that government funding continues for the company and it seems I am not alone.

I ran a small professional opera ballet company for 14 years with no funding and under continual financial difficulty. I am a woman and this was the only way for me. I was forced to do it myself so it was with great educational interest that I watched the  programme to see how my peers ran their companies. Here was my chance to learn how to do it properly. I have no wish to do it again but I was naturally intrigued.

What I saw shocked me. I had no idea that a ballet company could be run like that! If I had managed my company small though it was like that I should expect to fail and receive no funding.  What shocked me most was the disrespectful manner in which the dancers were treated by the management, the artistic director and the male choreographers. These wonderful talented artists who give their lives for their art were treated like dirt. If I had ever treated a dancer or singer as the dancers of The English National Ballet appear to put up with daily my dancers would, rightly, have walked out and I deserved to be prosecuted for abuse .

Their undervalued  and loyal ballerina Daria Klimentova was embarrassingly and distressingly treated. The company does not deserve her.  Derek Deane the choreographer of Swan Lake at the Albert Hall was a tyrant. His remarks on camera showed he had nothing but distain for the woman and dancers who were to save his career on the night.

It was not Klimentova's fault that the company had failed to get a Visa for the Russian ballerina.  The Management should have arranged one the moment the Russian ballerina had been hired possibly a year before. To leave it until a day before the ballerina was needed and be refused was their fault and bad bad management. The management had also failed to see that the conductor had attended rehearsals. He only turned up for the dress rehearsal and of course it was chaos. The conductor who may have been excellent at other times had no idea of what he was doing and damn near wrecked the whole thing. This should not have been allowed to happen.

Klimentova was expected to step in at the last moment  not only with the orchestra in chaos but with a talented but inexperienced 20 year old Vadim Muntigirov making his debut in a star role at the Albert Hall. Deane's treatment of her was a disgrace. He refused to speak to her after the dress rehearsal as obviously he felt her performance was inadequate. This is not the way to get a performance out of anyone. At this moment Kilmentova should have left.

The saddest shots were of Kilmentova and Muntigirov waiting to go on for the hellishly difficult Act III Black Swan pas de deux. They were in a corridor looking like frightened, naughty children facing a firing squad. Yet these two were supposed to go out and pull this management and choreographer out of the shit.

Wayne Eagling's behavior was simply grotesque during the rehearsal period of The Nutcracker. Because of his lack of preparation and his strange way of working he had not finished the ballet. His answer was not to let the dancers have a run through. Eagling is a dancer himself! It was only because of the professionalism  and loyalty of the dancers that this company scrapped through the opening night. Again it was Kilmentova who got them out of a disaster.

I think if this is the way ballet is achieved these days it is about time all grants were withdrawn. Ballet in my day was never run like this. If I were a mother today my children would not be encouraged to become professional ballet dancers.

But why I ask myself is Wayne Eagling still the artistic director? Even if this ballet management method gets results it is surely unethical? Ballet is not a gulag or a concentration camp where inmates starve and worked to death for art.


I was revolted and I want no part of ballet if it is run like this today. 

Copyright Obama and YouTube and free speech

YouTube, Twitter and dancing Schools are in danger of ten years prison under new copyright rules that are in the process of being passed by the USA Congress.

This is not a joke. If this law passes it will mean that any infringement of copyright by a single YouTube user could mean the whole website can be legally taken down. The USA authorities do not have to give any reason they can just remove the website and there is nothing anyone can do. The wrong doer will face up to ten years in prison.

Up until now YouTube, Twitter and Facebook have been protected from its users' copyright infringements but the Obama administration is against this. Many think this legislation is the greatest threat to free speech in present times.

Even the Library of USA is against this Bill. As it stands Audio Archiving is at a stand still as it is virtually impossible not to break some sort of copyright law. Ditto with scanning books which are in danger of disintegration because of the Brittle Book Syndrome although some progress is being made in that direction.

All to protect the Big Content Users who are persuasive lobbyists and the only group to benefit from this legislation which will stifle progress and hamper archiving for future generations. Already our computers are being monitored for shared files. You probably do not notice this but any person who uploads videos  to YouTube as I do will be aware of the copyright notice infringement that arrives with threats even if the composer is Mozart.

Copyright legislation is a mess. Some copyrights on work created 177 years ago will still remain in copyright until 2067. Also it means if you sing a song or your child dances to a copyright song on YouTube you could spent the next ten years in prison.

I have been a victim of artistic vandalism when Boosey & Hawkes had the tapes of the 1959 production of Britten's Turn of the Screw destroyed. I should like to upload September by Richard Strauss but cannot arrange a license even for ready money. This sort of negative activity only serves the publishers and not the artist. Fortunately R Strauss is out of copyright on 8 September 2019. I can wait.

This is a sad day for the creative artist and amateur performer. Today Shakespeare could not function under these restrictions. If today's conditions were in force Britten would not have been able to write any of his operas as they are based on previous creations. For many artists their work will be lost through lack of archiving.

I decided last year that from now on I should only sing and work on composers that are definitely out of copyright as it is the only safe way. I am in the happy position of being to do everything myself but this is limiting and I suspect I am one of the few if not the only one who can do it all myself. I am now limited to works written before 1923 which is sad because I sing 1930's music well.

YouTube, Twitter and Facebook are now under threat. Anything that the Big Content Users and the USA government do not like and they will go. Please oppose this Bill.

Hypothecation or How to Have your Cake and Eat It

Have you heard of Hypothecation? I hadn't until I watched Russian TV The Keiser Report. I thought he was joking but when I looked up  Hypothecation in Wikipedia there is was just as Keiser had defined. In fact it was the definition Keiser used.

The first is the common definition but scroll down a bit to the Rehypothecation section and this is where it begins to get scary.

Rehypothecation

Goldman Sachs Tower – banks that provide Prime brokerageservices are able to expand their trading operations by re-using collateral belonging to their counter-parties.

Re-hypothecation occurs when banks or broker-dealers re-use the collateral posted by clients such as hedge funds to back the broker's own trades and borrowings.

In the UK, there is no limit on the amount of a clients assets that can be rehypothecated,^[3] except if the client has negotiated an agreement with their broker that includes a limit or prohibition. In the US, re-hypothecation is capped at 140% of a client's debit balance.^[4][5][6]

That means the world's banks, if they use the City of London, can have their cake and eat it and go on eating it for as long as they like. They use our savings over and over again and eventually you and I will pay.

Like a second mortgage the UK banks can take out a second loan, and a third loan and a fourth loan  ad infinitum all on the original deposit which you and I gave them for safe keeping. They just eat our cake and go on eating.

No wonder David Cameron wanted the City of London exempt from new European bank regulations and no wonder Europe would not comply. It looks as if the City of London is running a giant Ponzy scheme and like all Ponzy schemes it will be found out. I cannot believe that my country men could do this!

If I can see this is a mess why can't our leaders?

I never thought it would be Russia TV that would point this out. Russia is not part of this great scheme of things and can take a more objective view as Russia can sit back and watch the West crash safe in the knowledge that it is rich in natural resources and can survive.

Be warned. Innocence and ignorance are unwise traits.