Christmas wishes

To all those who check my blog, I wish you a "Happy Christmas".

Miang and I are looking forward to Catherine joining us in a couple of days. She will stay with us until mid January and during that time we will travel to Ohope Beach and then to Papamoa to visit Jeanine and Murray.

Just over three years ago I had my first cancer surgery. Since then, I have taken nothing for granted and tried to fill every moment of my life with purpose and spirit. And throughout this period Miang has given me the most extraordinary love and support. I face 2012 with some uncertainty. My latest CEA shows that the cancer is raging unabated, indeed at the highest level and with the fastest growth since I started these measurements. However, this latest development is not without some value. I have taken vitamin C infusions through this period of record CEA rise. I think I can fairly say that in my case, intravenous vitamin C has not proven effective.





The pictures are of me with Thomas on my head and James in the water, of Chris and me on the boys' joint birthday, and of Catherine, me and Miang, taken in 2008 while we were in Berkeley, California.

I finish with my latest CEA graph.

My last graduating PhD student

On Tuesday evening, Bradley Douglass graduated PhD at Victoria University of Wellington. Brad is my 24th and last PhD student and so his ceremony had a particular significance for me. Brad is a great guy and is currently working in the lab on a post-doctoral fellowship supported from the Marsden fund. He is develping fast scan imaging techniques for complex flow velocimetry.

After the graduation I joined Brad, his parents, and my colleagues Mark Hunter and Petrik Galvosas, for a drink and bite at Zibbibos. My bites were carefully chosen and today, I am at day 16 since last colonic failure, a new record.

Insurance and banking.

Many years ago, my bank, the BNZ, suggested that I insure my car, my house and my personal effects with them. At the time, I declined, saying I liked banks to do banking and insurance companies to do insurance, and bakers to bake bread and airlines to fly aeroplanes. I deserted this moral high ground when I came to take out a new mortgage and the BNZ offered me favourable terms if I included insurance as well. Now supermarkets sell fuel, newspapers broadcast video on the internet, and corner dairies sell liquor. The world has moved on and so must I.

Wednesday week ago Miang and I attended the Institution of Professional Engineers black tie dinner. I had to make a speech and present a couple of awards. As the evening progressed the battery failed in my right ear hearing aid. I removed the hearing aid and put it in my trouser pocket. Later that evening, on returning home, I found that it was missing. One possibility was that in refueling the car at a central city service station on the way home, where I had removed my wallet near the pump, I may have dislodged the pocketed precious. We were too exhausted to search that evening, but by 8 am next morning we had returned to the service station forecourt. The picture shows what we found, right a squashed piece of high technology, worth around $3500 before a car had run over it, left the undamaged left ear device for comparison.

I rang Bay Audiology for a quote. Of course the original had carried a government subsidy and a special offer discount, no longer available. I was up for $4600. I had personal effects insurance, but had never listed or specified hearing aids on the policy. I was prepared to ask my insurer, but expected to be rebuffed. But this is New Zealand, where anything is possible.

I rang the Bank of New Zealand and within seconds was talking to Amy, who having confirmed that I really was "Paul" by my knowledge of Paul's birthdate, and the size of his fortnightly salary deposit, asked me sweetly. "How can I help you Paul?" I told her my sad tale. "Paul," said she, "it's so easy to lose hearing aids. Don't you worry. Of course we will be delighted to pay for a new one. $4600 sounds very reasonable. No problem at all Paul. And Paul. I want to tell you that there will be no excess to pay and your claim will cause no change to your future no claims bonus".

"Impossible. How can that be?" I asked. "That is because you are over 55" said this angel of banking insurance.

I was disarmed by the charming grace of this girl, and more particularly, the beneficence of her employer. "But Amy, I can hardly believe this. I think I must be in paradise to be dealing with a company like yours". "Paul," she asked "who supplies your hearing aid?" "Bay Audiology" I replied. "Oh" cooed Amy, "We deal with them all the time. Don't you worry Paul. I will send the claim number to them right now and they will contact you". "There is nothing more you need do."

"Amy", I said. "I am going to tell all my friends and family to insure with BNZ insurance!"

The next day I had a phone call. It was Tracey from Bay Audiology. She might have been Amy's sister. "Paul, how are you today?", she enquired, heartfelt sincerity in every syllable. "Your hearing aid has been ordered. And Paul, can you come in to have it fitted next Tuesday?".

I rest my case. New Zealand is a lunatic asylum of the most delightful kind. Of course in Dunedin, one expects familiarity and kindness bordering on the embarrassing. But this all happened in Wellington. Extraordinary. And, by the way. I think that banks can do insurance rather well.

Update on the "Zealandia Programme"

The media picked up on the story today in the Dompost
http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/6112198/Pest-free-sanctuaries-could-avert-disaster
and on Radio New Zealand
http://podcast.radionz.co.nz/ntn/ntn-20111209-0909-a_proposal_to_create_wildlife_sanctuaries_modelled_on_zealandia-048.mp3
Meanwhile, the Associate Minister for Possums and Weasels has seen fit to respond
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/political/93352/dunne-defends-new-conservation-role

Zealandia, 1080 and our forests

This year, the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, Jan Wright, released her report on the state of our indigenous forests. Let me quote

"It is seldom that I come to such a strong conclusion at the end of an investigation. But the possums, rats and stoats that have invaded our country will not leave of their own accord. Much of our identity as New Zealanders, along with the clean green brand with which we market our country to the world, is based on the ecosystems these pests are bent on destroying.

We cannot allow our forests to die."

The critical point at issue is the declining use of 1080 poison to remove possums, mustelids and rats. The map shows the vanishingly small part (dark green) of our conservation estate (light green) which is subject to pest eradication.

Jan Wright again:

"It is my view based on careful analysis of the evidence that not only should the use of 1080 continue (including in aerial operations) to protect our forests, but that we should use more of it."

The scientific evidence strongly supports the use and safety of 1080, as explained in the report, and in some simple FAQs on the Forest and Bird Society website
http://www.forestandbird.org.nz/files/file/1080_FAQ_july2007.pdf

Yet in doing a deal with an MP outspoken in his antagonism to the use of 1080, our Prime Minister has just made this enemy of our forests and native wildlife Associate Minister for Conservation. By this action, John Key has made clear his indifference to the disaster facing our native fauna.

Tonight I spoke to a donors meeting at Zealandia (the Karori wildlife Sanctuary) about the Sanctuary Vision and its importance for New Zealand. The extraordinary discovery that we have made with Zealandia is that a halo of birds has been generated in its wider vicinity, because of the 1080 killing of predators in the surrounding forest carried out by the regional council. The lesson is not lost on Jim Lynch, the visionary who founded the sanctuary concept. Why not repeat such experience in our conservation estate, perhaps 12 100,000 ha 1080-controlled outer zones, with a 1,000 ha fenced predator free core in which native birds can flourish and spread to the outer zone? We could cover 15% of our conservation estate in this way, at a cost of no more than 20% of the current biodiversity budget of the Department of Conservation.

I will work with Jim to promote these "Lynch-Zealandia" zones. Our "Associate Minister for Possums and Weasels" might be surprised to discover that we New Zealanders care about our unique heritage. The Kiwi, the Takahe, the Kokako, the Tuatara, these are our Stonehenge, our Lascaux cave paintings, our Great Wall.

If you haven't been to Zealandia lately, go there. It's wonderful. And on a gentler note, here are John Lekner and Mary Redmayne standing outside the boundary fence last weekend, following a stroll with Miang and me amongst the birdsong.

15 days, but I would have preferred longer

It's been a difficult week. It started well enough, with a trip to Auckland on Monday to speak at an international innovation conference, and a highly entertaining working lunch in Wellington hosted by Trade Minister Tim Groser in honour of some European investment bankers. Luminaries present included the Treasury Secretary and the Chair of the New Zealand Superannuation Fund. It seemed that they needed a scientist to add some unpredictability to the occasion. I managed the soup and soft fish. On Wednesday evening Miang and I were at the black tie Engineering awards dinner where I had to speak and present to some winners. I'm not sure if it was the asparagus tips, relentlessly chewed, or the soft brownie which I ate for dessert, all of course under Miang's strict supervision, but the next morning, while sitting in the sunshine at Karanga clinic connected to a vitamin C IV line, I felt the unmistakable pangs which are the precursor to a bowel blockage. I had gone 15 days, a record since these obstructions started in mid-September, but a desperate disappointment nonetheless.

I was due to fly to Auckland the next day for another speaking engagement, at a Competitiveness conference, and with the PM speaking in the same session. I relished the chance to lay out some of the paradoxes of New Zealand's innovation sector, but it was pointless to even think of it. I rang and pulled out as the periodic pain grew greater during the afternoon. The obstruction finally passed about 2 am. I stayed at home and recuperated the next day.

Cancelling engagements is now becoming a regular business. I was supposed to go to Australia from Tuesday to Thursday to present a Young Investigator Award at the ANZMAG (Australian-New Zealand Magnetic Resonance) conference held at Torquay near Melbourne. Anticipating the very problems which did indeed eventuate, I pulled out of that meeting a couple of weeks ago. What I didn't realise was that they would name the medal and prize after me. Petrik Galvosas made the presentation on my behalf.

This is becoming bizarre. We now have two medals in my name, after the RSNZ award to Peter Gluckman. Now the Wellington Rotary Club has instituted a Prize in my name to be awarded to secondary school science students and the MacDiarmid Institute is talking about a "Callaghan Fellowship." I blame Heretaunga College who started this madness back in March when they named a new science building after me.

All the recognition carries with it a surreal sense that I should be looking down on events post mortem. I have no eagerness to acquire this state but have had little encouraging medical news to the contrary. My physicians believe that the repeated obstructions indicate disease (cancer) around the small intestine and the discomfort I now feel within does nothing to dispel that diagnosis. A PET-CT scan in early January will provide some insight. Whether that leads to further surgery or chemotherapy is a matter to be determined.

Still, the week finished well with a visit from Rod and Joan Lambert, and a meeting, at their Wellington hotel, with Joanna and Kerry Lawson who were down from Auckland for the weekend. Jo is in her late 40s, has had metastatic bowel cancer for four years, two peritonectomies, and is still surviving well despite elevated CEA and apparent ongoing disease. She is an inspiration to me.