World's Liveable Cities, Frustrated Turkeys and a Scientist/Comedian
November 29, 2022 Volume 3 # 34
World’s most Liveable Cities
The list from The Economist popped up in my email box Sunday morning. Here are some of the graphics. The most livable cities in the world are in Europe and Canada. The United States loses out because of crime. As you will see in a following graphic, New York City, a place many people adore, is way down.
Calgary is the number one city in North America. A bit too cold for me. I would take any of the other three Canadian cities first. Look at New York City. My daughter is leaving there next month, moving to Amsterdam. On a ride home on the subway a nutcase exposed himself. The good restaurants and vibrant life are great, but not if you are always on edge.
Home of the snappy headline, The Economist speaks of a dividing line in Europe. It is the equivalent of the old Iron Curtain, with the exceptions of Prague and Budapest. That yellow dot beside Vienna is Bratislava in Slovakia.
The rich cities of the Middle East are the most liveable cities. Maybe not if you’re gay.
Nairobi makes the mid range list. There are two cities in South Africa listed in the middle as well. A friend of mine was murdered outside Cape Town a few years back. I wouldn’t live there on a bet.
Osaka is tied with Melbourne for number one. Not a single city in China where lockdowns make things less liveable. Once upon a time Hong Kong made this list.
Thanksgiving Gobblers
Bird flu has killed off 50-million American turkeys, driving up the cost of the Thanksgiving bird. The US Fed can’t do anything about this slice of inflation.
A side note on turkeys. Domesticated turkeys can’t breed. Because white meat is so popular the birds have been bred with large breasts— where the white meat is— and the tom turkey can’t mount the hens. They have to be artificially inseminated.
A sexually frustrated domestic Tom Turkey puffing out his giant chest.
As someone who raises chickens for show, at poultry fairs— cancelled for three years because of Covid and Avian Flu— you can see old breeds with normal chests and normal sex lives. Wild turkeys abound in Canada and the United States, a recent phenomenon. The birds below are a so-called heritage breed,
Happy heritage turkeys.
What do you Want to be When you Grow Up?
No one picks fireman anymore. The choices in China seem as unrealistic as in Britain and the United States. How many astronauts can there be?
Essay of the Week
Robert Buckman was a cancer specialist, TV personality and media and scientific polymath. He wrote fourteen books dealing with cancer, health and death and hundreds of articles on similar subjects. In the Videos for Patients series he co-starred in 45 episodes with John Cleese, of Monty Python fame. Just before he died he had completed a series on medical education called Top Ten Tips, which he made with Terry Jones, another former Python man.
All of Dr. Buckman’s writings and TV performances were injected with a cheeky British sense of humour. He knew that medicine, in particular cancer medicine, scares the daylights out of patients and there is a somber seriousness to things that he wanted to change.
Though he could appear at first glance as the medical version of an English music hall comedian, Dr. Buckman was in reality a serious research scientist and practicing oncologist who saw his mission in life as making medicine easy to digest. Not only was he was medical doctor, a specialist in both internal medicine and cancer and he was a PhD and a professor of medical oncology at the University of Toronto. He was still publishing papers, and was researching the effects of low-level chemotherapy at the time of his death.
“The idea behind low level chemotherapy was that the lower dose was easier on the patient,” said his wife, Patricia Shaw, who is also a pathologist and medical researcher. “He was a sincere, caring person.”
Robert Alexander Amiel Buckman was born in London in August of 1948 into an accomplished family. His third name is a reference to his mother’s family and his first cousin is Barbara Amiel, the journalist.
“His family were all serious intellectuals who were also very funny,” said Dr Shaw.
Along with being a brilliant student he was on the stage early in life. He was the Midshipman in Gilbert and Sullivan’s HMS Pinafore while he was still in the Canadian equivalent of high school. It wasn’t an amateur production but a professional performance at the Savoy Theater in London’s West End.
While at Cambridge University he performed in Footlights, the famous theatrical troupe that spawned so many of Britain’s comedians. While he was a medical resident he teamed up with a fellow medical student, Chris Beetles and they formed a partnership doing standup comedy and eventually writing and performing in a TV sitcom called The Pink Medicine Show.
The serious side of Rob Buckman won out over the theatrical side and he continued to study medicine, finally deciding to specialize in cancer.
"I became interested in cancer medicine in 1975. After completing my specialist training in internal medicine, I went to the Royal Marsden Hospital, where I trained in cancer medicine, including laboratory research leading to a doctorate,” wrote Dr. Buckman several years ago.
It was around that time that Dr. Buckman started to link his theatrical ability with his medical knowledge. He appeared in a series of science programs on Yorkshire Television in Britain. By 1981 he was the co-host of a medical program called Where There’s Life. In the mid 80’s he came to Canada for a short trip and stayed.
“He made up his mind right away and wrote out his CV by hand,” said Dr. Shaw. “He was impressed by the Canadian medical system, especially what was being done with oncology in Toronto compared to Britain.”
Dr. Buckman worked as an oncologist at the Bayview Regional Cancer Center seeing patients and working as a medical researcher. A sensitive man in spite of his jocular exterior, he saw the heartbreak of cancer patients hearing the news they were going to die. It was hard on the patient, the family and the doctor.
"In the last few years, in my hospital and teaching practice, I have concentrated on various aspects of the doctor-patient relationship, particularly with respect to breaking bad news and providing supportive care for the dying and their families,” said Dr. Buckman in an interview.
One video series he produced was called `Why Won't They Talk to me?'. It was aimed at medical students and others who had to communicate bad news. He also wrote a book for the relatives and friends of someone who is dying called `I Don't Know What to Say’. Most of the titles of his books and programs told you in one line what you were going to read or hear, such as `Cancer is A Word, Not a Sentence’.
He would fly anywhere for medical conferences, and he was in demand as the opening speaker since he had the rare combination of knowledge and the ability to entertain. For many years he flew to Houston, Texas, where he was an adjunct professor of neuro-oncology at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Clinic, ranked as the number one cancer treatment center in the United States.
For the past eight years he has worked and done research at the Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto where he was attached to the Campbell Family Institute for Breast Cancer Research.
Dr. Buckman’s main hobby was reading: fiction, history medicine. He loved books and had a collection of antiquarian books. One of his favourites was an edition of Dante’s Inferno illustrated by Gustav Dore. He also started an all men’s book club that included bankers, doctors and radio hosts, including Andy Barrie the retired CBC broadcaster.
“Much more than a fellow male book clubber, Rob and I were among each others' very best friends ever since we met almost twenty-five years ago,” said Mr. Barrie from his farm north of Toronto. “The man was so brilliantly wonderful at so many things - from being hysterically funny in telling a story to being stunningly supportive in guiding the confused and fearful through the labyrinth called cancer.”
“He had an extraordinary brain and knew so much about a wide range of topics because he was so well read. His retention was remarkable,” said Tom Healy, a retired banker, long time friend and onetime member of the book club. “He had a wide range of friends from all walks of life. Many of his friends, including me, urged him to slow down. But he packed two lives into one.”
In one of his books, Dr. Buckman wrote about his own funeral.
“They’re going to play a recording of me saying `Thank you so much for coming. Unlike the rest of you, I don’t have to get up in the morning’.”
For a man who wrote and spoke so much about death, his own death was rather dramatic, something he might have scripted into one of his health videos. Robert Buckman died quietly in Seat 8A in business class on the Air Canada flight 859 from London. He was 63.