But I'm only partying every other day. I've been going to St. Albans at least 4 times a week for the past two weeks. I'm fianlly starting to get some traction on the project. I've put together a decent outline, and I'm doing my "terms of reference" tonight. I printed a report from the NHS that I can use in my work, too. Chapter one was 243 pages. But chapter two was slimmed down to just 85. All by myself I increased global warming by a full degree today.

It really has been - and continues to be - a party every other night. On Tuesday all but one of us from the floor went out to a Chinese restaurant around the corner on Tower Bridge Road, since one flatmate left at the end of the week, and another this week. Great Hot and Sour soup. We split about 6 or 7 entrees and appetisers, including Crispy Duck moo shu, stuffed iceberg lettuce, Szechuan chicken, and more. But no fortune cookies. What a rip-off. After that we went to the recently refurbished Roebuck pub across the street from the hall. Very nice place. High ceilings, ornate columns at the bar, and really comfortable cherry leather couches.

On Thursday night we had the Great Dover Street boat party. We took a river cruise down to the Thames Barrier Project flood gates and back. I keep trying to find time to go see it, but have never succeeded. Now I don't have to. I wasn't sure we were going to make it on time. Tania (from Kazakhstan) and I stopped at the ATM, and just as we got to crossing the Tower Bridge, they closed the gates to lift the drawbridge! I've seen it before, but it's still pretty cool. And it only took about 5 minutes, so we had plenty of time. Plus the coordinator was smart enough to tell everyone to arrive 30 minutes early, so the stragglers actually made it on time. Well, almost, but we backed up to get them. And don't get Tania confused with Lena. She's from Kyrgyzstan.

They had a bar and a Dee Jay - though no food. I guess that makes sense on the water. Just the booze is trouble enough, but add the water and nasty junk food to it, and it's gotta be a recipe for disaster. We also went by the "Millenium Dome." Yawn! it's almost as exciting as it is attractive. But I was able to figure out why none of London has air conditioning - they put it all out there for the dome. Where Yankee or Dodger Stadium has those fiant spiral stairs to get to the upper deck, this place has banks of A/C units. Eight or ten of 'em, with a refrigerator the size of a tractor trailer perched on a pedestal. Gimme Wembley anytime.

Speaking of Wembly, the Deejay on the boat was ticked off. First, not that many people showed, because it was the night of the big England-Portugal match in Euro 2004. So he was pumping out about 400 watts of power per person to an almost empty dance floor. And of the 30 or so people that did show, by the end of the night 15 were gathered around this guy with a 7" portable TV trying to see the game. England lost on penalty kicks, depsite tying the game at the end of the first overtime. They actually won it on a goal with about ninety seconds left in regulation, but the referee made this mystery call on the guy who headed it into the net, so it was disallowed. You don't think the game being played in Portugal influenced his call, do you? On the positive side, Greece beat France 1-0 the next night.

Then GDS had a barbecue in the quad on Saturday night. Except it rained so everyone ended up crowded in to the Atlas Bar. The food was pretty good. They had burgers, barbecued chicken breast, shish kebab, jacket (baked) potatoes, salads, and for dessert something that lloked like a cross between lemon meringue and key lime pie. But the smoke became overwhelming soon enough. Tonight is night number four: there's a birthday party at a boat moored in the Thames for Claudia (from Colombia) from the sixth floor. I'm pretty whipped, but I'm going to try to make an appearance. I'm such a nice guy. And on Wednesday half of us have to do a presentation of our project. We haven't seen anybody for a few weeks, so we'll get together after to celebrate a bit.

Now I just need to plan for Friday.

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So, if you recall, I mentioned something about trying to decide between strategic and high profile for my project. No need to worry my pretty little head. I seem to have stumbled into both. I met with my project sponsor and the Bed & Herts (pronounced "Harts") Health Authority director. They tossed four different projects at me, including the business case for a Med School. But in the end, it looks like I've chosen to do an analysis of the Radiology system for the B&H Community Diagnostic Treatment Centers (DTCs). These are the groups that handle all the referrals for X-rays, MRIs, etc., along with lab work. Nobody's really sure what equipment is out there, and how much it's being used.

This is where it gets odd. The suspicion is that even though there can be waiting lists of more than a month for Cat Scans and the like, the machines are sitting idle a good deal of the time. Partly because of staffing, but mostly because of poor planning and even poorer distribution. There might be a cluster of 4 MRIs within a few miles of each other, and then nothing for another 15 miles. So my job, since it appears I've decided to do it, is to find a way to quantify what's actually happening, and then find a way to fix it. In about 6 or 7 weeks time. Piece of cake.

But only if there's enough data available. Otherwise I'll go back to the Med School plan. My sponsor thinks that since this is now a huge political to-do - one of the Labour MPs is scheduled to make a big-time announcement about the DTCs right about the time I'm supposed to finish - that she mentioned the possibility of it being published in the medical journals. But I'm not holding my breath.

So I'm catching the Thameslink train each morning up to St. Albans from London Bridge. If I catch the 9:10 I get in before 10, and it "only" costs £7.50. But if I need to be in earlier, I have to take the tube to King's Cross to get the 8:16. But that costs £15.20. It's a tough sacrifice, but I'm willing to wait for the 9:10 whenever possible. And in another display of British bureaucracy, NHS workers don't get a discounted train pass. After all, why would you want to make it more attractive to be a public service employee who gets paid less than the private sector? I've got to find out what a monthly pass will cost, and see if it makes better sense. I do get the student rate, but I have to pay £20 to get their student ID. After all, why would they want to use my LSE student ID as proof? or my National Union of Students ID? or my Transport for London student ID (for which I already paid £15)? Nope. Gotta have one of their IDs. I think that's how they won they Battle of Britain. The German pilots weren't allowed to bomb unless they had the correct ID. If not, they had to go back, fill out the forms, submit them with a passport photo and signed and stamped confirmation from their Oberstleutnant that they really were Nazi pilots before they could drop any of their bombs.

I sit next to the guy in charge of the "Investing In Your Mental Health" program - and offshoot of the "Investing In Your Health" program. He was quite amused today when I was able to connect to their network, and even though I couldn't log on, I was able to connect to everyone's local hard drive. Ain't technology great?

So anyway, the ride to and fro is kind of relaxing. Since I'm going against the tide it's not usually very crowded. I listen to my iPod and read. There are at least 7 or 8 major papers in this town, and there's always one left behind, but I've been reading a book of short stories this week. I may even finish it tomorrow. Then I'll start back in on Bill Bryson's book. On my way home I can see the construction site for the new Wembley Stadium. This is the web cam of the site. Besides the cool arch it will have more toilets than any other building in the world. I'll bet they're bursting with English pride. Or maybe that was the bubble and squeak.

And speaking of English pride, they did a great job in the Euro Cup 2004 opening match on Sunday. They led 1-0 at the 89 minute mark (a game is 90 minutes plus a couple minutes "injury time"). They lost 2-1. To France. And Becks blew a kick from the penalty spot. His own Goalie from Real Madrid beat him. Bend this, pal! It doesn't get much better. I liked a letter someone wrote to the Gaurdian columnist, who suggetsed that all the people whining and moaning about petrol nearing £1 a litre (that's about $7 a gallon!) could probably improve their mileage if they'd just take those stupid English flags (St. George's Cross - red on a white field) down from their cars. The relief from the drag on the car is probaby worth at least a mile or two a gallon.

And I finally found some good cheese. McLelland's "Seriously Strong Red Cheddar." It doesn't stink all that well, but it is nice and crumbly and a little salty. And, to my relief - and mild disappointment - it's actually orange, not red cheese. So, I guess it really doesn't stink.

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I made my way up to St. Albans in Herfordshire this morning to meet with my Summer project manager. I had to take the Tube to King's Cross and then the Thameslink to St. Albans. £17.20 return. Ouch. But they're expected to cover my transportation costs. I'm just not sure if or how I'll get reimbursed for today - or Monday, when I start in earnest. I wanted to make sure I got there on time (that is actually possible) for 9:30, so I left home at 7:40 (ugh), so I could catch the 8:20 from King's Cross. That would get me to St. Albans by 9:00, and if I missed it I could get the next which would get me there by 9:15. I was a little too efficient. I got to King's Cross at 8:00, grabbed the 8:05, and was in St. Albans by 8:35. So I spent an hour walking around town.

Like every other place here, it doesn't really open until 9. And around St. Albans' commercial district they're a little more casual. So at about 9:05 the newstand opened and I was able to get a Diet Coke, and enjoy a walk around town. In wingtips. Surprisingly little pain involved, even though I've only worn shoes four times since I got here, and one of those was to Lynne's New Year's party. I met my project manager: Dr. Penny Dash, MA, MSc, MBA, MRCP. She's a non-practicing physician who moved into management. She doesn't actually work for the NHS, she's a consultant working on revising the entire delivery system in B&H. It's two counties that are slightly smaller than Connecticut, with a population of about 1.5 million. She actually has 4 different projects I can choose from. There's the business case for the Med School, and three reorganisations of Emergency Care, Acute Medicine (hospitalisations), and Community Diagnostics (Doc-in-the-box, radiology centres, test centres). I go back Monday and will spend about 5 hours in a couple meetings hearing all about these, and then I'll finalise my choice.

I'm feeling pretty positive about it, and I'm interested in all four subjects. Best of all they're not looking for any serious regression analysis, just some standard payback and cost/benefit analysis. The core of it is that in order to support staff, hospitals need to serve a population of about 400,000. Their six hospitals only serve 200-250,000 each. They plan to make 4 of them acute care ("real" hospitals), and then reorganise the supporting services in the region to both balance the loss of two full-service facilities (they'll keep the other two, but reduce the services) and provide more responsive care, and attract more new doctors. B&H is a fairly affluent area, so there isn't a real shortage of GPs, but their hospitals aren't well funded and the facilities are lousy, so it's hard to attract staff professionals. Nurse vacancies are higher than in London.

Well, I'm going to enjoy my last couple days of care free life, maybe get to the zoo this weekend. I want to see if any of those monkeys has a major league arm. I'm seriously thinking of getting drunk tomorrow. When you don't drive, there's a great mass transit system, and school has a really cheap bar, there's no excuse for staying sober. The weather's been great, though not that sunny, and a little muggy. The temp's around 80 most days this week. And as I'm sure you remember reading, the nice windows washing guy left my windows unlocked so I can open it more than 5 inches at the top, and I get a great breeze at night. I just have to remember to close it before the morning staff notices it when they come in at 9:00.

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Well, I thought I might stop in to see the folks at the medical centre today, since the last two fingers on my right hand have been numb for about a week and a half. I thought it was probably due to a near-fatal case of writer's cramp after a pair of three-hour exams. But the doctor didn't seem interested. He asked about my neck - even though he wasn't the same person I saw back in January about the numb arm. I explained how this was different. That it was only the fingers and it started at the extremities and worked its way slowly up. The other started at the shoulder and worked down. He said he usually found this was due to cervical problems. Oh. My. I recalled that for the last week or two it felt like I had a bruise just off the side of the middle of my spine... I still have no complaints about socialised medicine. I'm back on the NSAIDS (Voltarol) and I'll be careful of the back when I exercise (not a big problem). And he suggested I lie down when possible instead of sitting up in my chair, to relieve some of the pressure on my spine. Again, not a big problem.

If you read about Monday's Barbican tour you'll recall that it was a lovely, sunny, 85 degrees. Well today was a lovely, sunny, humid, stifling, overbearing 90. My appointment was for 10 o'clock. By the time I got on the bus at 9:45 it was well into the upper 80's and before we got a half mile I was already sweating like a, uh, well, like a Londoner! Unless you're lucky (?) enough to work in one of those sealed glass-box office buildings, air conditioning does not exist. I can go to to the Student Union shop, where the ceiling is 7 feet, so the air conditioner that hangs from the ceiling crystallizes the beads of sweat on my neck, but they look annoyed when you drag a table and chair from the quad into the centre of the store. Customer service is a dying art.

I don't understand some things about this country. Above all else is their refusal to acknowledge the existence of climate. The windows are used, alternatively, as architectural accents to save on stone, or a device to intensify the heat of the sun, like ant hills under the magnifying glass of an 8 year-old boy. Radiators are used as decorative devices with no functional value. And air conditioning? A/C is obviously a tool of the devil! How else do you explain building a pair of 6 year-old, stone and brick, 450+ unit living halls without any air conditioning, and windows that barely open?

On the other hand, this heat also meant that the skies were absolutely clear, and a view of the Venus transit was possible. So I destroyed a couple of floppy disks, held the two of them together and looked up at the sun. A bit intimidating, but I started out stealing glances, and then moved up to 5 or 10 seconds at a time. The sun was quite high in the sky by about eleven, and I could actually make out a little black dot on the (now) red face of the sun. And just in time. It looked to be about 90% of the way across. I tried to use the floppies as a filter for the camera, but it was problematic. I could get a good view holding the camera, but with the sun being 150,000,000 kilometres (93,000,000 miles, 1 AU) away, even the slightest movement could move the sun out of the frame. Did you ever watch the long-range shots of the space shuttling landing, where it bounces all around the TV screen? Same principle. So I set it on the tripod, but then I had to all but lie on the ground to even try and see through the viewfinder, which was pointing straight up at the sky. We'll see what I got. Don't hold your breath.

And tomorrow they say it will dip back into the high 70's.

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I spent Monday toodling around The Barbican with John. I thought "Barbican" was just one of those odd little names that this town has for certain sections of the city. It is, but that's not what The Barbican is about. A barbican is a section along a fortification, and this just happens to be along a section of the old wall to the city. It turns out to be a massive development in the heart of the (one square mile) City of London. It was planned in the late 50's and opened in 1969. It's a giant complex of apartments and an arts centre right in the heart of the city, just North of St. Paul's. It was built to attract people who work in the city to live there as well. I'm not enthusiastic about the architecture - it's concrete pill-boxes and giant towers, but it does what it's supposed to do, and not that badly. It's also the home of the London Symphony. A 230 square foot studio flat goes for about £200,000. You don't want to ask about the one-bedroom triplex.

So John was my guide through the complex, which includes a very nice centre court with a large pool and a couple waterfalls. This place is another one of those urban renewal projects like they built in the States during the same era. Except that this one works. It's got scads of elevated walkways throughout. You can go from one side to the other without touching street-level. But since a great deal of street-level is used for parking garages and deliveries everything you want is above ground. We made a stop at St. Giles (within Cripplegate - ouch!) church smack in the middle of the centre plaza. It's only been there a few hundred years. It was the home parish of the parents of St. Thomas More, and it survived the blitz relatively well. There are pictures showing it surrounded by rubble, and it appears to have mostly suffered from losing all the windows and roof. Not bad considering the rest of the neighborhood looked pretty flat. And old drawings show that where the centre pool stands used to be the river. Nice touch.

Our real goal was the cathedral of Saint Bartholomew The Great (as opposed to other, more pedestrian St. Barts). The guide book I had showed the little number 12 at the top of the map (about 11:30). Not exactly accurate. Turns out it is closer to 6:30. Not a big problem, unless you're in a giant 40-acre concrete complex where each building looks a lot like the last, and most of the walkways meander about to make it more interesting and attractive. Though we did get to see a lot of flowers hanging from all the balconies. Heck, even the cop on the beat didn't know how to find it. So with a little help from someone smart enough to own a copy of the A to Z guide to London (a local - as it seems are most of the buyers of this guide), we stumbled upon this gem of Norman architecture. And it was closed on Monday. Now, theatres and musueums often close on Monday, but a church? And this architectural gem of white and black stone rebuilt almost the entire steeple and a good section of the front facade with authentic orange brick.

Not to be a complete washout, and since we were heading toward school anyway, I took John over to St. Ethelreda's on Holborn Circus. He seemed to like it, and was very enthused about their music program. He might go to one of the concerts on Sunday after mass. It'll give me an excuse to finally get there, too. And the day was far from a washout. It was a beautiful, sunny day; about 85 degrees. A nice day to be out and about.


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