DP23011 Vanity Publishing (Autobiographies)

So reader before you start reading about me I need to clarify some of my personal views on this subject of writing about yourself in an autobiographical book or blog and how my personal circumstances have recently changed my views on this subject.

I had always thought those that write about themselves were being somewhat vain so I always avoided doing so. Running DMB Publishing I got some interest from those wanting to publish their own autobiographies. But it never interested me since I could never envisage it having much in the way of potential sales unless they were famous or infamous. At the time I was not particularly interested in reading about normal people’s lives. This area of publishing is known as Vanity Publishing so I avoided becoming involved in respect of my own life and in publishing these type of autobiographies for other people. They can be a real money spinner for publishers, particularly in America, although when you add up the costs involved in getting it right for the customer with revisions and so forth as a publisher you can struggle to make it pay unless you charge £1000’s. In the UK, unlike America, customers are unlikely to be prepared to spend that amount on a published autobiography.

Then at a family gathering I did agree to publish an autobiography for a new family member, John Moverly OBE, because he had a higher media profile and I thought it might have some sales potential. It was called “From Parish Pump to Royal Appointment” and John had paid to have it Vanity Published but had now run out of printed copies. It proved a very interesting book to read and I learnt more about a new relative than could ever have been communicated at a family party. Although an enlightening book it never sold many copies no doubt due to a lack of marketing. It is available to purchase on Amazon using this link

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B09FH1K236

So what else has changed my view on autobiographical writing. I have lost two very dear friends. George Szubinski, my business partner in Zig Zag Digital Associates Limited, who suddenly died of Covid in April 2020 and Steven Wallsgrove, a Warwick Historian, whose books I was publishing who died just as suddenly in October 2021. In both cases I had asked them to write autobiographies that I would have freely published for them. Neither did so but George did make a start on one which you can read if you follow this link.

https://social.shorthand.com/zubo01/jC41NksYYu/dedicated-to-james-jerzy-szubinski. 

This is George’s dedication site for his son James who he lost in a terrible accident in the home in 2007. Click on “@zubo01”, then click on “Who do I think I am” and then scroll down to read the start of his autobiography. It’s a unique beginning to an autobiography that would have been well worth reading had he completed it.

In both cases I wrote “In Memory Blogs” for them on this blog site. 

George Szubinski 

(https://dmbpublishing.blogspot.com/2020/12/leaving-digital-legacy.html ) 

Steven Wallsgrove 

(https://dmbpublishing.blogspot.com/2023/01/23-02-steven-wallsgrove-xxxx-2021.html ) 

But in both their cases there was so much of their lives missing that I would have been interested to read about. But is that just me? Two lives ended with the detail of all their life experiences lost forever. Autobiographies could have easily been written by them and remained available for future generations.

In my own case a heart attack on the 30^thJanuary 2023 and open heart surgery on the 20^th February 2023 set me thinking it was time to both downsize my possessions and record some of my working life experiences. My attempts at an autobiography will only be work, project and employment focussed with me not being interested in sharing anything more personal about my life. Sorry I am not going into those areas.

My garage is full of paperwork relating to my previous employments and my own business activities. So I first tackled the records from my employment at JBA Software Limited (1990 – 2000) and this linked into my previous Halfords Limited employment (1975 – 1990) both IT based jobs. Whilst previously Avery Limited (1966 – 1973) and Triplex Safety Glass Limited (1973 – 1975) had been employment that was based upon my CEng in Mechanical Engineering graduate skills.

These engineering skills and experience related to design, manufacturing processes and factory management. At Avery it covered Dynamic Balancing Machines for jet engines, missiles and dentist drills in their Testing Machine Division in Smethwick, Birmingham and their Research Centre in Tamebridge, Walsall north of Birmingham.

Whilst at Triplex I managed a factory producing toughened glass for cars and then in their Aircraft Division I was technically responsible for Concorde, Boeing 747 and Spitfire windscreen manufacture. I remember having to have responsibility for a handgun !!!!. Civil airliner windscreens not only have to withstand a frozen chicken impact outside but they have to contain a bullet fired from inside of the cockpit. From the days of high jackers getting into the cockpit. After firing the gun you could see the bullet lodged within the acrylic layer. From memory a 747 windscreen has seven layers of toughened glass alternating with acrylic layers with the inner and outer layers obviously made of glass. The finished product had to be optically perfect. In the repair area returned hail damaged 747 windscreens from tropical storms over the Pacific could have up to five of these layers damaged by hitting 6-inch hail stones. The windscreens frames were re-glazed and then sent back for reinstallation on the 747.

So the area I am going to start with in respect of being autobiographical relates to my Halfords to JBA career move in 1990. This was a significant career move which coincided with me selling my “Cake and Bake” bakery business which we had owned for 10 years along with shutting down my garage based printing business. This used both letterpress and lithographic printing technologies which I had taught myself. The development of my book printing package continued using PC based DataEase. Busy times. It had always been a Bannister trait of my Grand Father and Father to have multiple home and business projects on the go at any one time. This applies to me these days in retirement with my DMB Publishing business. What applied to me, my Grand Father and Father, was if we didn’t keep creative and active depression could soon take hold. The essence of life and to avoid depression is to always keep busy preferably with something of a creative nature. Both my Grandfather and Father were water colour artists whilst my Grandfather made things in metal and my Father made things in wood. 

DP23010 - DMB Publishing Process Changes - Heart Attack

 On the 30^th January 2023 I had a heart attack and on the 20^th February 2023 Open Heart Surgery to change a faulty aorta valve. Whilst recovering I realised if I died all my life’s stored documentation would have been placed in a skip and sent to landfill. This documentation means nothing to my family and it would be impossible for them to collate it and store it. So like all good process engineers this has caused me to review and then change my approach to documentation. The essence of this change is to go digital since this removes the storage issues and allows for a more structured way to store it possibly improving access to those choosing to want to read it. Essentially it is creating my digital legacy now essentially by placing my work into a structured set of blogs that anybody can access. In fact allowing it to be easily accessed after my death is important to me. Oddly enough it is inclusive of this blog  where you get to share my consciousness on a Sunday morning the 9^th April 2023 at 6.00 am. What I am not going to do in this blog is detail all the decision making that I have made about the way it will be stored and where it will be stored. That is the subject of a future blog. This blog is going to look at how I operated prior to my heart attack and the way I have started to operate now in a specific area of document storage.

I have always been a big reader and a hoarder. For some reason I store things for future use often without knowing what will be that future use. This applies to all the screws, nails, tools and so forth stored in my garage so it applies to physical things. There is little order to these physical things with this working against me in that I cannot locate the stored “hardware” when a need arises whilst in the case of things like drill bits I keep blunt ones along with the sharp ones. Following from my father’s (Bill) habit I have always kept a small wood store. But this blog is not about these type of physical things but about the storage of documentation, which is currently physical being paper based, but has the scope to become digital thereby none physical. So let us look at an example of how I operate in terms of information storage in support of its future use in my writings.

A common daily practice for me is to read a daily newspaper which is normally “The Times” and to cut out any articles I believe may be of use in my future writings. I would say some 10 years ago I appreciated that this needed some structure so I created my own DMB Publishing Knowledge Base Taxonomy. Taxonomy is the science and practice of classification. Just to be really boring and pedantic I also use topography which links things to their geographical location. This is important to me since the importance of mapping, as distinct to writing, as a technique of communication has for some unknown reason been thought of differently within my thought processes. I like to sit and read maps in a similar manner to the way I would read a book. In many information transformation tasks then a map is more effective than using words. Thus my obsession with not just geographical maps but with business process maps. Just as an aside when I wrote my book on the Domesday Book (1086) allocating land to individuals it was made almost impossible because mapping as a technique of communication did not exist. Imagine the work of the current Government Land Registry without having access to a map.

So back to the DMB Publishing Knowledge Base Taxonomy. To create it I listed my areas of interest in a table that I kept on the study wall. Each area was allocated a number from 01 to 10 for starters with the opportunity to add others over time if necessary. The key thing was for this to be kept simple so originally my idea was that it should be only 10 subject areas but it almost immediately extended to be 11. It should be noted as of 09/04/23 it has extended to 14 with it starting to align itself with books I am currently writing from 12 to 14.

The one theme running through all the subjects is a focus upon digitisation. As a writer it is the impact of digitisation that drives my thought and creative processes. It forms the bedrock upon which all my thinking is based although increasingly the digital is within a biological context both in terms of the world, and universe, but increasingly things within my own consciousness. The digital thinking has to acknowledge that the biological has taken the subject of digitisation to its most effective and complex implementation. This has evolved into the “Biology of Machines” and “Unity of Knowledge” taxonomy entries at references 12 and 13.

 

These are listed below so you get the idea.

Ref	Subject Name	Description
01	DMB Publishing	Generic covering everything about publishing.
02	Digital Human	The digitisation of the human and health.
03	Digital Investor	Investing based upon the digital revolution.
04	Digital Disrupter	Where going digital disrupts markets.
05	Digital Thought	Just any thoughts I have on anything.
06	Digital Vision	Visions out into the future.
07	Digital Creative Thinking	How creativity works.
08	Digital Documents	In the broadest context everything going digital.
09	Digital History	Anything historical.
10	Digital Geographical	Anything geographical.
11	Digital Artist	Anything artistic.
12	Biology of Machines	Book Specific – Kevin Kelly – Out of Control
13	Unity of Knowledge	Book Specific – Edward O. Wilson - Consilience
14	Devon Estuaries	Book Specific – Devon Estuaries and Goole Maps

 

Now my filing system consisted of Cardboard Document Wallets (Envelope Files) each labelled with the taxonomy reference (eg 09) and subject name. (eg Digital History) . Many wallets could exist for a reference. I had started to sub-categorise these on the labels where necessary but this was never formally recorded.

 

 

So let us now look at how I have now digitised my own working practices. Back on the 19^th May 2021 I was very impressed by James Marriott’s article on Nostalgia. I cut out the article wrote on it the date of publication. Then I decided where it should be stored in terms of my taxonomy. I decided it should go in “05 Digital Thought” because this was the one classification where other writers work could be stored since they had transferred a thought to me with it becoming one of my thoughts. So the cut out article was placed in the correct envelope. So for now that was the end of the process. This is where things really break down in terms of the effectiveness of this approach.

Now periodically I would decide to go back and read the contents of an envelope. This was sometimes triggered by the gathering of evidence to support a piece of writing I intended to do or just a case of wanting to re-read things that had triggered my imagination in the past. It was a messy process with bits of cuttings falling all over the place. Often articles had to be sellotaped together to make sense so this became an untidy way of reading material. The biggest problem was if I wanted to use any of this material and rightly give copyright credit to the original author it was a re-typing exercise. So what was the new process?

So let us look what I have done to James Marriott’s article which has been in the envelope for over 2 years unread. The first major step is I now have access to “The Times” digitally via a subscription so I can now link to or cut and paste articles. The subscription allows me to search the Times archived copies of their newspapers. So I have searched and found this article. My way of working is then to firstly post to my email account the link to it.

In my own time using the link captured in the email I bring it up and copy and paste it into a Word Document stored in a folder on my PC named according to my DMB Publishing Knowledge Base Taxonomy. It is named suitably and must incorporate a time stamp in the file name having a format “V99 ddmmyy”. (eg V01 08023).

Now it is important to appreciate that on my PC is a master blog directory containing all my individual blog directories named according to the taxonomy. Within the individual blog directories is a Word copy of each blog being a copy of exactly will be posted to the internet blog. Each blog post has a unique blog reference for example DP23010 representing blog name (DP),year (23) and serially posted number within year (010). There are many lessons to be learnt about the insecurity of the internet which will be discussed in detail in a future blog but some pointers for now.

Never keep your only source of something you store on the internet on the internet. Whatever it is text, narrative, pictures, movie or sound must have an original copy stored on your own PC with its own defined backup plan. Be prepared for what you have on the internet to disappear overnight. Commercial organisations are storing your work and they can easily go bust.

Be prepared for paywalls to be suddenly be put in place denying you access to your materials or their materials you are using without you being required to pay a subscription. Always look to copy the materials you are using onto your own PC so you retain your own copy. On a number of occasion’s materials I thought I had free access to have been suddenly been placed behind a paywall and with me not being prepared to pay the subscription access has been lost.

If you are trying to extract materials to bring down to your own PC be prepared for the owner of the sites to prevent you from doing this by putting in place a number of denial strategies. Most can be got around but you may need to be an expert or seek expert advice. This is why the movement called Open Systems and the Creative Commons Licencing initiatives are so important at guaranteeing freedom of access to internet materials but these being subject to specific defined criteria. You need to know these rules. Essentially they make your use free but look to preventing you re-selling the material in its original format or your reworked format without the Copyright Owners permission. Although there are an increasing number of sites offering completely free and unrestricted use of their materials.

 

So now go and look at the blog where my new digitised principles have been applied.

https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/3005846826155496721/6355759670567118338

DP23009 Bloggers moving to Newsletters

So Social Media has led to the demise of the so called Blogosphere with the loss in popularity of the terms Blogger, Blogging and Blogs. The name blog, being a shortening of the term “web log”, was never particularly attractive and certainly not a marketable brand. It dates from the mid-1990’s although it was its launch in 1999, with the online service Blogger, that made it popular with those looking to communicate over the internet with a readership. It was developed by Pyra Labs before being acquired by Google in 2003. But whilst blogs became less popular the micro-blogging service Twitter launched in 2006 flourished. So evolved the “twittershere” or another term used in parallel called it the “twitterverse”. The short sharp nature of Twitter, maximum of 280 characters per Tweet, survived whereas the often more wordy Blogger lost its popularity. Twitter being popular with celebrities, politicians, business people and media savvy individuals attracted large followings which served to grow traffic volumes on the platform.

But what should be acknowledged is the concept of a “blog” has actually infiltrated into both the native websites and the Content Management Platforms like Wordpress where the option exists to have a blog installed on the website. These blogs allow for the site authors to include into the site a running news cycle relevant to the subject they covered by the site. So blogging has just moved into being more specific to a website’s content and located usually as a menu option on the website.

In my case I used Google Blogger as a very easy to use way of storing my personal DMB Publishing Knowledge Base in the Cloud for free whilst not actively looking for any readership or income streams. It’s in built time stamping capability ensured all my posts were accurately time stamped and stored in an orderly manner. It was also built with a very simple easy to use User Interface (AX) and being Google hosted it was extremely fast to use. It was also very reassuring to have Google looking after the data security (ie potential data loss) and data protection (ie potential hacking corruption) aspects. With Google, as the owner of Blogger, you were probably storing your data on the safest available internet platform whilst having all these services for free along with seamless software upgrades and almost limitless data storage capacity. What is not to like? It is difficult to believe that I cannot be the only one that has spotted this excellent use of free cloud space. The fact that it is functionally engineered as a blog is irrelevant whilst in fact the automatic blog post time stamping is a bonus whilst each blog post having its own unique URL make it the perfect data repository. Throughout my IT career I have been amazed how you can use software intended for one purpose for a completely different purpose and often it can be more effective than the original dedicated software. Not enough has been made of creating “generic” multi-purpose software. Like Accounts Systems built in Excel and Asset Management systems built in Word. Microsoft to their credit built the first truly generic set of software with Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Publisher along with others like Paint, Media Player etc allowing for lots of software application creation as well as creating the original intended file types. So let’s move on.

In terms of gaining and maintaining a readership the problem with Google Blogger was you were dependant on the readers finding you and continuing to visit you on a regular basis. The truth Google Blogger has carried on being very actively used by many authors and readers without the hype. But at the same time many migrated to the Social Media Platforms (eg Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIN etc) because the readership was more guaranteed since a larger and more topical range of subject matter guaranteed more readers on the platform that were more likely to find and read your content. Whilst others, often the true bloggers, migrated to the more sophisticated Content Management Platforms (eg Wordpress, Drupal etc) since these sites lost the overriding time logging functionality common in Google Blogger and they could be made to operate exactly the same as a native websites with menus and other common capabilities.

Now what is significant is that whilst the original bloggers stayed on Google Blogger (or other blogs) or moved to the Social Media Platforms or moved to the Content Management Platforms some wanted a different more pro-active approach. So was born a new market for using newsletters. Oddly enough newsletters had preceded blogging on the internet being one of the earliest ways of distributing narrative and pictures when the internet was first established. But this time around it was the automated distribution processes, including paid for subscriptions, that could be better engineered rather than just the newsletter content.

So why read a newsletter rather than read a website? For starters it requires less work on your part with it just arriving neatly in your inbox. It also offers a finite quality in that it is short and sharp so quite easily consumed by you the reader in a world offering continual data overload. It is also a subject you have choose to subscribe to either for free or paying a subscription. From the authors view point by managing a free part leading to a paid part it does lend itself perfectly to being a potential income generator.

Newsletters properly managed over a subscribing free or paid for readership could be a saviour to those wanting an income out of publishing their work. With Newspapers now moving over to the digital subscription model with Magazines looking to follow this Newsletter option is ideal for self-employed or hobby publishers. Newsletters combined with some eCommerce trading in products associated with the theme of the newsletter is another way of earning an income from your writings. In fact very often the income from products sold can soon exceed that from your written materials.

Substack is the leading newsletter platform capitalising on this new market. They advertise that anyone can start a publication that combines a personal website, blog and email newsletter or podcast. Substack lets independent writers and podcasters publish directly to their audience and get paid through subscriptions. You can choose to offer some free and some behind a paywall. You always own your intellectual property, mailing list and subscriber payments without being blocked by gatekeepers always being responsible for your own full editorial control. Best to go to the Substack website to see many examples but a few examples below to allow you to get a flavour for this new approach.

An original Times Newspaper article on Substack from June 2021

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/86ad97d4-d74a-11eb-8f14-0bb645f59db0?shareToken=5f9f811152d95b497a0e2decfdc5f7cb

The main Substack Website

http://www.substack.com

Buy, Bitch is a humorous and strangely addictive shopping newsletter from Vice journalist Veronica de Souza.

http://buybitch.substack.com

Crème de la Crème is anything that delights or infuriates the writer and podcaster Aminatou Sow. Her commentary covers everything from capitalism to skincare.

http://aminatou.substack.com

Agony aunt Heather Havrilesky describes it as “bridging the gaps between wisdom and dread” Both compassionate and confrontational.

http://askpolly.substack.com

 

But you don’t have to use Substack there are independent providers who offer a variety of Digital Marketing Services including newsletters. With my interest in United Kingdom Maps I have a monthly email from Alan Godfey Maps which combines narrative and pictures of their current projects as well as advertising their maps for sale via their eCommerce site. It is a very effective way of keeping my interest up in what their business has to offer. They use an international Digital Marketing business, Constant Contact, to provide their newsletter distribution service.

 

Alan Godrey Maps

http://www.alangodfreymaps.co.uk

 

Constant Contact are the provider of the newsletter service to Alan Godrey Maps

http://www.constantcontact.com

 

 

For those prepared to go further in reducing the content provided to the reader than rather than having an email with an attached Newsletter you can include all the content directly within the email. This can be made to look like a newsletter displayed within the email itself. There are many businesses prepared to provide this type of service. They cover the inclusion of your graphical content in an email and then its distribution to defined email lists or they will do a discovery process for you locating potential readers for your content type. One big provider is “mailchimp” and I am sure you will have a received an email from them with their distinctive monkey wearing a cap logo at the bottom of the email.

 

Mailchimp provides a number of services with free startup options. But it becomes too expensive to use for larger volumes for the home or hobby author.

http://www.mailchimp.com

 

The End.

23 - 008 Marketing DMB Publishing - Shorthand

For some time I have realised that I am failing to market DMB Publishing effectively. But in truth I don’t want to spend any money or time on doing this marketing. I would much prefer spending that time on researching and writing new books and blogs.

Then it suddenly came to me. When I was running ZigZag Digital Associates (2018) with George Szubinski (Deceased April 2020 – Covid 19) he was always experimenting with different new website generators. I had been nagging him to write his own autobiography because from the stories, many over a pint or Indian meal, he had told me he had an amazing childhood and the mystery of never knowing any details of his real father. In fact he was sure that his surname name,Szubinski, was invented by his mother to gain entry to the United Kingdom as a refuge of the holocaust in Poland. Anyway. As usual George could not write it in Microsoft Word like anyone else would but he decided to use a new website generator called Shorthand. At the same time he wrote a memorial site in Shorthand to his son James who had died in a terrible home accident in 2007. Something which haunted George for the rest of his life where to tried to manage his grief by looking to keep all the digital memories of James active on the internet for friends and family to access.

With George so gifted as a fast learning programmer he soon produced two excellent “stories” using Shorthand. When first shown to me I could not help but be impressed by the output from Shorthand whilst accepting that his autobiography only amounted to a few pages. It was after George’s death in 2020 when I was trying to draw together all his digital work that I realised that Shorthand had ceased trading and the site although maintained “frozen” could no longer be updated.

So today (20/03/23) I decided to see what had happened to Shorthand. To my surprise although the original site was still frozen they had undergone a reincarnation with a new site and business model. Essentially you are now allowed three stories for free on their Shorthand site under the so called “freemium” pricing strategy approach used these days as a way of getting software established in the marketplace.

See off we go on some DMB Publishing free marketing. Whilst it is taking me some time to learn how to generate my own “story” site, mainly due to the unfamiliar AX (User Iinterface), after about 4 hours I have a basic crude prototype published and running on the internet. To me this is indicative of Shorthand being a good solution. Sometimes, particularly with some of the so called open system applications, I can have achieved nothing in the way of a deliverable after many days experimenting.

So the task is now to work it up progressively to be something exciting to market DMB Publishing.

Background to Shorthand.

Shorthand was created in Brisbane, Australia but it is now truly global. It has offices in Brisbane, London, New York, Seattle, Fukuoka, Sydney and others. With amazing set of customers many major world organisations as well as significant brands. From BBC, Dow Jones, Tripadvisor, UK Parliament, Save the Children, unicef, Honda, Penguin  etc etc   

Some useful links below :- 

 

The sales site for Shorthand

www.shorthand.com

The brilliant Honda use of Shorthand

https://www.honda.co.uk/engineroom/cars/civic-the-iconic-hatchback/

DMB Publishing use of Shorthand (under development)

https://preview.shorthand.com/1wS5wLPjYe3Dekxh

To access my Dashboard Control

app.shorthand.com

23 - 07 Why do paper books still exist in this digital age ?

 So why have eBooks not destroyed the market for paper books? The development of eBooks was a digital disrupter technology. But as a disrupter technology eBooks have only managed to run in parallel with the centuries old technology of printed paper books and not replace it. They have failed to sweep away the paper books. In fact eBooks have been losing ground to the older technology which has managed, through the increased use of digital technologies to make a come back on both pricing and distribution costs. You can now buy paperbacks at low new prices or pay 10p in a charity shop for many a hard bounded masterpiece. Even the internet services, offered by second hand book shops, is booming guaranteeing a future market for pre-used paper based books. Think of them being like vinyl records. The nostalgic feelings that can derived from using older technologies like paper books will never be lost.

The handling of a wedge of paper the size of two hands with some weight to it creates certain emotions of touch and feel that cannot be replicated in the use of an eBook or Smartphone or Tablet. The book allows you to feel the weight of knowledge, experiences and emotions covering all matter of things right in your hands. The weight and the number of pages all laid out in front of you gives you that feeling of expectation that no electronic device can emulate. You can flick through the pages in expectation of the future content be it textural or visual.

But in many ways it’s the fact that paper books can be stored on a bookshelf allowing you to have the ability to easily visually peruse these portals of frictional stories or factual works of genius. Although it is accepted that the dictionary and encyclopaedia genres are much better delivered as digital solutions. In terms of books you read rather than reference it is difficult to emulate the feeling created by handling such books compared with those inert feelings associated with holding an electronic device.

Now the best books are the creation of one person. The writer who commits their individual consciousness to words. The fact that writers can work on their own without being dependent on others gives you the chance to exclusively share their minds. But the essence of books is that although they trigger and guide your own thought processes the final setting of the visual scenes is a function of your imagination not theirs. They can use words to paint the picture in terms of characters and settings deciding how much detail to share with you but the real skill in writing is to allow the reader to complete the job with their own vivid imagination. It is a fact that mentally created characters or settings will be different from that perceived by another reader and no doubt different to what the writer originally intended you as the reader to visualise.

As Hilary Mantel, sadly now deceased, has proved with her trilogy on Oliver Cromwell even an historical factual book can link documented facts into undocumented but realistic life like character settings. The skills of a brilliant historical writer making an often very dry genre into best seller material. It is an accurate fictional representation of a well-researched historical character or setting. In my historical writings I have often tried to convey the scene through the eyes of someone living in the relevant time period and this needs to take into account the available technologies that person is likely to have available to them to use.

Now the work of long dead writers across the centuries can be another source of a unique experience. Both fiction and fact books can offer you the chance to experience the world at the time of the author’s writing. Fact books, particularly covering the sciences, show how intellectually things were understood at the time of writing. Reading these older books often shows how things have or have not moved on with the passage of time. My particular interest has been identifying and understanding some objects or entities that have not changed over time. The book is a classic example of being a type of document that although the medium of delivery has changed from cave walls, to pottery, to paper to digital the fundamental writer’s thoughts are often the same. The thought processes of the human brain have not changed significantly over the last 2000 years but the technologies in which these thoughts can be expressed and communicated have radically changed.

But getting stories and messages from human to human has now extended into what could be termed competing media types. Sound alone being broadcast radio and now the segmented easily selected podcasts. Pictures being artwork and photographs moving from paper to digital images. Moving pictures moving from films and video using cinemas and television to digital streaming on smartphones and tablets. All these are competing with the book for your time and attention. It is strange how many people in describing the things they want to do on holiday list reading a book as one of their priorities. Just you and the writer spending valuable time together.

So although I consider myself a technologist I have not been drawn away from paper books. Searching Amazon for a book I will often avoid the Kindle digital options, although cheaper, choosing to go for paper versions. Under the economics of retirement living often a printed paper second hand book is the preferred purchase option. In my case because I like annotating using notes written in pencil onto the books pages this concerns me less on a second hand book.

There is only one area in which I have moved completely away from the paper based product. Experiencing and preferring a true digital disrupter technology. Yes newspapers. In particular the Times Newspapers. Both the daily Times and the Sunday Times. But they have to be read on an Apple iPad. Their implementation particularly when commencing from a PDF facsimile of the actual printed paper copy whilst seamlessly linking into a textual copy of a selected article in a reasonable size font makes for a perfect reading experience. Then the extra capability to share the link to this article with friends or for my own use by creating a linked message format suitable for a Smartphone screen size by just undertaking a few clicks whilst reading the newspaper. Perfect.

Significantly the Times publishers have retained their newspapers original paper based brand appearance. There was a danger they would when they went digital just emulate the design style adopted on the internet by the TV Broadcasters.(eg BBC, Sky etc). The Times have covered this territory by offering a second format that is purely HTML5 based emulating the style adopted by the TV Broadcasters. Essentially the TV Broadcasters are looking to lower the textual content and look at replacing it with video outputs in many cases captured directly from the public. This both suits the increasing video expectations of readers particularly the younger generation (eg TikTok) but it can be much cheaper to produce requiring reduced human work input. But this at the same time it will lower its intellectual offering to the reader. The Times, rightly, are looking to retain this intellectual capability provided by its excellent journalists.

So at some point this digital disrupter will completely replace the use of the paper medium for the distribution of knowledge and entertainment. But I would not predict this as being too soon based upon how slow my reading behaviours change.

23 – 06 David Bannister –Nearly the end of my life.

 

Airlife Device

A must have Device if recovering 

from Open Heart Surgery

Medical Diary

Date	Day	Status	Description
30/01/23	Monday	Unplanned	Heart Attack at 12.00 noon whilst cutting back trees alongside the house.
02/02/23	Thursday	Unplanned	Caught the Norovirus stomach bug whilst in the Alexandra Hospital.
06/02/23	Monday	Planned	Angiogram through wrist into heart at Worcester Royal Hospital.
07/02/23	Tuesday	Planned	Diagnosis. Stenosis (narrowing) of the Aorta Valve.
08/02/23	Wednesday	Unplanned	Caught Covid - 19 in the Alexandria Hospital.
09/02/23	Thursday	Planned	Prognosis. Risk of Death 25% per year. Possible 4 Year Life Expectancy.
09/02/23	Thursday	Planned	Fix. Open Heart Surgery to replace Aorta Valve. Mortality Risk 1.5 %.
10/02/23	Friday	Waiting	All clears required on Novovirus and Covid 19 before able to progress.
14/02/23	Tuesday	Waiting	All clear on infections.
15/02/23	Wednesday	Waiting	Bed required at Royal Wolverhampton, Heart and Lung Specialist Unit.
18/02/23	Saturday	Planned	Bed available at Royal Wolverhampton Hospital. Transfer to them.
20/02/23	Monday	Planned	Operation planned at mid- day. Entered Operating Theatre at 2.00 pm.
21/02/23	Tuesday	Planned	Post Operation Intensive Care Recovery.
21/02/23	Tuesday	Planned	Return to Ward.
25/02/23	Saturday	Planned	Discharged at 6 pm. Home 7.00 pm.
11/04/23	Tuesday	Planned	6 week Case Review at Royal Wolverhampton with Surgeon.

 

Introduction

Hopefully you have arrived here via a link from my FaceBook, Twitter, LinkedIN, or other ad hoc internet sources. I have never been comfortable posting personal information on these Social Media platforms. The type of acceptable personal information differs from platform to platform depending upon the particular culture that has developed. Adopt the wrong style and content and this leads to abuse. But at present there does not seem any better way to share a message. But for some reason I remain comfortable with adding it to a blogging platform (Blogspot) since so few people get to read it and it allows me to very easily maintain my diarised thought records without criticism. It also allows me to remain humorous whilst telling my many stories that often lead into the discussion of serious science and humanity subjects. I also have in mind these posts being potential source material for a future book. If this is not your cup of tea I suggest you don’t waste your time and exit now. Otherwise read on……..Welcome Friends and Family.

Narrative

The mechanical nature of my medical problem made me very keen to discuss it in detail and its rectification. Not so interested in the work necessary to gain access to the heart. Dr D. Ramnarase, Consultant Cardiologist, Alexandria Hospital was very willing to discuss the detail information I wanted and arranged to show me a “CT video” of my aorta valve struggling to open up due to calcification. But you still cannot beat a sausage sandwich with brown sauce !!! This gave me a very clear visual insight into the issue at hand. Access to the body and mind for newly oxygenated blood from the heart was severely restricted by its narrowness and clunky behaviour. The high risk of a further heart attack made an enforced hospital stay necessary with constant monitoring required. But at no point would he discuss the surgical solutions since this was not his area of expertise. Fortunately for me the other valves and most of the pipework was in line with their normal expectations of someone my age. (74 years). Had I smoked it would have likely ended it for me on the day and also they would be unlikely to proceed with the operation due to high risk of failure during and post operation. Not drinking and not being overweight also factors in favour of a successful operation. But at my age a decision to do open heart surgery is very much in the grey area of their decision making. It is certainly not a given. In fact more likely it is that an operation would not to be proceeded with whilst only using drugs to reduce risk. Stents solve pipework narrowing but not faulty valves. I was acknowledged as a DIY and walk around the park individual. This highlights the fact that if you don’t present yourself as “fit enough” they will not take the risks in respect of their careers operating on you. Whilst it is your life risk it is their career progression and reputational risk. They make the decision on an operation for you, you don’t get that opportunity. It maybe your body but it is their career statistics. They certainly don’t want a failure especially when there is time to carefully analyse the situation. Fast emergencies is another story.

When I met Giuseppe Rescigno, the Italian Heart Surgeon, there was an immediate synergy between us. When he was prepared to draw and explain diagrams in my Note Book my confidence in him rocketed. Precise and academic with an innovative way about him. A willingness to explain the pros and cons of metal verse animal tissue valve structures and how he actually stitched it in place. He recommended pig tissue rather than cow. This surprised me since when I owned my Cake shop come Deli pork was always the first meat to go off. The metal option required you to take anti-rejection drugs for the rest of your life. In truth I had no choice and rightly he decided.

Then I saw the anaesthetist but to be honest the whole process there was too frightening to contemplate with the switching off of my heart and then running my body on a Heart and Lung Machine. Did not even note his name nor ask any questions. I was too frightened. This Royal Wolverhampton, Heart and Lung unit had been sponsored by Lord Nuffield, the famous motor car manufacturer in the 1950’s, to develop Heart and Lung Machines with Lucas closely involved with their manufacture. At the time nobody in the medical profession thought it possible and I must admit I still remain sceptical. You know loose jubilee clips and faulty switches. Visions of a car mechanic having to step into keep the damn machine running and the patient alive whilst all the medics retreated to the tea room. Then the shout, “Damn I cannot find my 8 mm socket or do I need a 9 mm?”. Anyone seen it on the floor? With me fading away slowly in the background with the bells and alarms ringing away in a classic boffin control room chaos film sequence.

From then on life becomes surreal. One huge benefit was being surrounded with new characters to get to know. Both patients and staff. Trying to understand the staff roles was a nightmare. Asking the Food Staff to remove anything clinical on your bedside table got a rule based response. Food Staff were welfare defined and Cleaning Staff was a different category. Ward Cleaning at night took on Dr Who dimensions with automated ward cleaning devices. Sister was still the sister. Firm command and control with empathy. Consultants and Doctors still did their bed by bed rounds followed by a gaggle of Junior Doctors. Many staff hunched over Computer Laptops both day and night was the normal with many laptops on sophisticated wheeled human height trolleys as tall as the user. The Patient Multi-Media offerings were more often than not faulty. Touch screens were strike full on screens as if you were physically moving a button behind the screen. Yet they seemed to work better when the patient was using “paid services”. My conspiracy theory.

Patient interactions like always remained the main source of entertainment. Whilst sadly in many cases the patient was off in a very painful fairyland. People are and looked so ill. Then post operation you join them. Feeling very ill amongst others is a huge levelling experience. Whilst amongst this anguish humour can still survive. Always impressed by the articulate logical patient with Stage 4 Cancer being able to discuss their Pain Management Plan with the Oncologist as if planning a holiday. Some people are so stoic. Discussing this with one such patient his point was you just become a fatalist. Yes, my end date is sooner than yours but we all have one. But it is a time to be very kind to each other. Human supporting human. Full stop.

Never cease to be amazed how post operation recovery can be so painful and physically demanding. It is as if your whole body has been trampled on top to bottom. Well it may have been you are not to know?

After such an “out of the blue” event its time for a lot of reflection. It was very nearly the end of my life and there would have been no written record like this one for you to read. Most patients said that after their experiences they would review their lives. But how many do and what latitude is there really to do so in our complex western way of life. My plan was to be a financially successful author in retirement but that has not happened. But being honest writing and publishing has given me a real purpose to my life and lots of enjoyment. Strangely English History has become a major interest of mine. Sorry I know it is a boring subject !!!

Medical Note - Relates to Airlife Device Pictured Above

When the Nurse dropped this device on my bed as I was about to be discharged I must admit I lacked focus on what she had to say. She rightly gathered my attention. She explained that when I wanted to clear mucus from my lungs and it was too painful to cough due to the surgery then progressively blow into this device making the blow force stronger each time. It will loosen the mucus and when you cough you will be able to bring it up and spit it out. In terms of post op recovery this has proved the best possible advice. If you are unfortunate enough to have to face open heart surgery please do not forget this piece of advice and ensure you leave with a Airlife Device. We call it the puffer at home. It’s brilliant.