The Ballad of Billy The Kidney

Jelly beans herald Kidney Health Week

Kidney Health Australia has released a very interesting and rather cute video advertisement to mark the beginning of Kidney Health Week tomorrow.

Which jelly bean are you?

:

• Kidney Health Australia's media release follows.
• Kidney Health Australia's page on this campaign.

• Image credit:  NineMSN

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The Senator and the bottle

I am not exactly sure what to make of Senator Steve Fielding's sudden switch to opposing the Australian Government's so-called "alcopops tax".

Certainly the experts seem to think that the increase in price in these drinks simply makes the consumers drink other things.

But in my humble artless way I was hoping that at least this was a start of some sort in getting binge drinking by some (not all) young people under control.

I get concerned when I hear my students casually talking about getting drunk on the weekend, and I recall several alcohol-affected renal patients I have met at dialysis centres.

But 'twas not to be.  For all his protestations about being a simple bloke supporting families, Senator Fielding is becoming as wheeley-dealey as the next politician.

Its a wee bit rich when he now decries alcohol advertising in sport to take him seriously, given his public-about-face on the alcopops issue.

• Background story from ABC [Australia] Lateline program of 18th March 2009

• The image of Senator Fielding arriving for work is from ABC [Australia] News

Great figures in Transplant / Non-Transplant History: Alfred Hitchcock

This episode of Great Figures In Transplant / Non-Transplant History presents us with a man who needs little introduction – Sir Alfred Hitchcock (1899 - 1980). 

He was a British / American film director, noted for his use of tension and darkness in the 66 films he directed from 1922 to 1976.

Sir Alfred Hitchcock appears here because of the manner of his passing, due to kidney failure.  The immeasurably cheery site findadeath.com suggests that this popped at the very end of his life whils his general health was also failing (as can happen).

Certainly he had a bit of a weight problem throughout his life, and weight issues do not exactly assist the kidneys in their work.

But at least Hitchcock had a sense of humour about this, as is illustrated in the following “directorial cameo”.

As you probably know, one of Hitchcock’s trademarks was to make a cameo appearance in each of his films as an extra – sitting at a bar, standing in a queue, sitting at a dinner table, that sort of thing.

The action in the film Lifeboat (1944) took place entirely on board a lifeboat cast off from a sunken ship.

How could Hitchcock do the cameo thing in such a tiny setting?

According to the Internet Movie DataBase, he placed his picture in a newspaper advertisement for weight loss that floated among some debris around the boat.

Hitchcock had happened to have lost a considerable amount of weight from dieting around that time, so he was seen in both the "Before" and the "After" pictures.

• The above YouTube clip placed by tessi2000 is a compilation of Hitchcock's cameo appearances in his own films.

The jolly site findadeath.com talks in a non-cited way about Hitchcock's celebrated comment, "Actors are cattle." This stirred up a great deal of protest. So the master allegedly issued a correction; "I have been misquoted. What I really said is: Actors should be treated as cattle."

There is a huge amount of material on the WWW concerning Hitchcock.   I can but hope to bring you a selection of the most notable and least rubbishy matrial that I can locate.

• This YouTube clip placed by slightstrider shows Hitchcock introducing his film Psycho in a movie trailer.

• Wikipedia article
• Listing on the Internet Movie DataBase.
• ScreenOnline > Sir Alfred Hitchcock
• Buttercups and Ravenwood [blog] > Alfred Hitchcock cheat sheet
• The Alfred Hitchcock wiki
• How to turn your boring movie into a Hitchcock thriller
• Hitchcock Online
• Alfred Hitchcock - The Master of Suspense
• findadeath.com > Alfred Hitchcock (READER ADVISORY:  I almost didn't put this one on because its a bit vague on its sources and in my view its a wee bit morbid, so I ask readers to view this with a grain of salt.)
• YouTube > The corpse scene from Psycho (VIEWER ADVISORY: Views of apprehended violence and one bloodied corpse)

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• The image at the top of this post is from the blog Buttercups and Ravenwood

The Obscure (NOT) Object of desire ... I mean, Fundraising

Today I received this cheery note (republished below with permission) from Annette Smith of Kidney Health Australia.

Aaaah!  This re-fires my hope to make it across the Finish Line (and the Start Line) for next year's City2Surf!

I have 2 Sponsors! Wow!

Here is the latest from my sponsorship weblog, folks!

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I now have 2 Sponsors!  The weight of financial responsibility weighs heavily on my shoulders.

My 2 sponsors are:

1.  My wife (thank you, Pauline!  Thank you for attaching the epithet "hero")

2. Young Jack from Wollongong, who is shaving his hair instead of running. Such is the way of youth. You can see his sponsorship weblog here.

Meanwhile, the walks to work are going OK, notwithstanding CityRail. I aim to do 2 long walks this week to round off my training.

Cheers!

j