Musical reunions

I note with passing interest today that hysteria has been reborn with the release of tickets to see Take That. Quite why, I can't imagine because to the best of my knowledge they weren't that good first time around and, in the musical instrument stakes, Led Zeppelin appear safe for the time being.

I can understand reunions for the sake of generating more money but frankly, this motive has gone past the point of boredom and has now sneaked into the ominous territory of tiresome. The reunions which interest me are those where money is of no consequence and the only issue revolves around the resolution of artistic difference. So, if Pink Floyd were to reform properly and more pertinently record new material to augment their legendary back catalogue, I would be very interested. The death two years ago of Rick Wright, their keyboard maestro would however render any proper reunion rather shallow.

Therefore, I started thinking about the potential reunions out there which could be made with all previous personnel, with no financial need and where the group in question was highly significant. It becomes difficult. The Who are missing their entire rhythm section, The Jimmy Hendrix Experience is now called Noel Redding, The Beatles are now Paul and a somewhat garbled Ringo, The Faces are minus Ronnie Lane and the Small Faces are minus Ronnie Lane and Steve Marriot. Led Zepellin would now be confined to being acoustic, The Doors would be an instrumental trio and God Bless them, The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band would have to take to the stage minus Vivyan Stanshall. The latter would be unthinkable as evidenced when I went to see them three years ago. Phil Jupitus is many things but Viv Stanshall he is not and never will be. Incidentally, viewing rare footage of the original Bonzos performing Little Sir Echo for German television is a glimpse of Stanshall at his very best.

The sad passing of Pete Quaife in June this year put the skids on any potential Kinks reunion and the passing of Brian Jones at the House At Pooh Corner in 1969 put the kybosh on any serious Stones revival. There is one from the sixties which is theoretically acheivable; Deep Purple. Whether Ian Gillan and Ritchie Blackmore could be persuaded to inhabit the same county again is open to debate.

I think perhaps the Sixties holds no remaining possibilities worthy of consideration. However, from the 1970s two outstanding examples have indeed reformed quite recently and sadly I wasn't able to see either; The Police and The Specials. Thankfully no such reunion is on the cards for Scotland's finest - The Bay City Rollers!

Both sides now

It is said that the Canadian folk singer Joni Mitchell penned the lyrics for her song "Clouds" as a mere teenager. If you've ever heard this song, you will appreciate how astonishing this is. Well, like Joni, I too have looked at life from both sides now. As I embark on my clinical training interviewing and examining patients in a hospital setting, I still see each patient as myself. Let me explain. When I found myself in hospital in the New Year of 2005 I didn't know what had hit me. Finding myself with failed health in hospital did not fit with my life plan. However, I had to adapt to that environment and, as best as I could, accept it. I was lucky to have a loving family and many friends who showed me how much they cared. I encountered a wide variety of compassion in the medical professionals. Some were indifferent to me. Some were just too busy to have the time to show any compassion. Some were born to be in that profession. I was the patient and they left me in no doubt about it. Despite the fact that they were very busy, they still found the time to talk to me as a person - not as a patient. This is surely the greatest gift of all and the one to which I aspire. I have great compassion for those whose conditions leave them with little or no function but I have even greater compassion for those who have nobody in the world who cares for them. Surely this is the saddest situation of them all. We all need to be loved and to know that somebody cares irrespective of their relationship to us. As a society, how can we have come so far in so many ways and yet receeded so far where it really counts? I would rather be working in a run down hospital where every patient had at least one visitor who came to see them because they cared rather than a new hospital where patients languished anaesthetised by the effects of no love. I have just bought a pharmacy text-book laden with a plethora of weird and wonderful drugs but it seems to me that the most important drug of all is not listed.