Malaysia and Singapore

For the past week, Miang and I have been in Malaysia and Singapore visiting family and friends. This is my fifth time in South East Asia and it is always a stunning experience being plunged into a completely different world, different from New Zealand obviously, but also enormously different within itself as I am always aware when crossing the causeway from Singapore to Johor.

After a night in Singapore with Miang's half brother Miang Wei, we were driven over to her Malaysian home village of Renggam where her stepmother lives with Miang's half sister Miang Hong. If you are by now confused, let me remind you that all of Miang's siblings are named Miang, and she should properly be named Miang Hoong, not to be confused with her Renggam half-sister, Miang Hong, nor while I'm at it, one of her brothers, Miang Hiong. Of course her family call her Miang Hoong, or in the case of her younger full brother, Miang Chiang, as "Sis Hoong". Miang Chiang is known to the family as "MC", in that most efficient of Chinese customs, reducing names of the truly famous to a minimalist acronym (KL for Kuala Lumpur, JB for Johor Baru, and so on).

While in Renggam we commemorated the third anniversary of Miang's father's death. This we did through a simple indoor ceremony with joss-sticks at the shrine inside the family home, and then by burning various items of value to her Dad in the street outside. Those items included paper money (of the Monopoly variety) and, burnable cans of her father's favourite beer, Carlsberg. Yes, only in Asia can you buy burnable beer cans for such purposes!

On this visit, with Miang's other half sister, Miang Key and her husband Daniel occupying the spare room in the Renggam house, we stayed in the nearby town of Kluang, taking the opportunity to climb up part of the nearby Mountain of Gunung Lambak. It was also a chance to do a little shopping, to have our eyes tested and to buy two pairs of fashionable glasses with graduated lenses, all for the princely sum of NZ$350! Of course we ate "a la famille" lunches and evening meals of such irresistible tastiness that we both added 2 kg over our week away.

Miang's brother, Miang Hiong, known to us all as William, is a leader of early morning Qigong and TaiChi exercises in a local Kluang park. We were up at 6 am to join him in the darkness before dawn. In his Qigong moves, William takes on a whole new persona of graceful leadership, with the large crowd of participants doing their best to follow his every move. Miang is the shadowy figure on the right in this video.

After Kluang we travelled back down the peninsula to Kulai to take part in an informal reunion, a chance for me to meet Miang's school classmates, and then to MC's in Johor Baru for a night before crossing back over the causeway to Singapore, where we were hosted by Uncle CC and Auntie June. Of course, this was an occasion for more feasting, the picture showing from left to right Uncle Hew, Auntie Peak Chu, nephew Kelvin, MC, Auntie June, Uncle CC and yours truly.

And no evening in Singapore is now complete without a visit to the just finished Marina, with the glittering Casinos and Sands Hotel across the water, complemented by the Lotus-like shape of the new Science Museum. Singapore is truly staggering, a city state of no natural resources with a per capita GDP of US$36,000 per annum. I spent my plane journey back home reading a 2011 book of interviews with the architect of Singapore's rise, Lee Kuan Yew. To quote "What makes a country grow is talent. We must attract and retain talent. Then we have vibrancy. How do we compete with Chinese and Indians where we know they are going to enter in a big way? We succeed by staying in little niches, securing qualities which they cannot match, like credibility, reliability, intellectual property and the rule of law."

Now where have I heard that before?

Gorgeous Grandsons

I cannot help but be the proud grandad in publishing these two videos of Thomas (7 months) and James (3 years and 7 months) respectively bouncing and scooting. The voiceover is from their lovely mum Hiva. My hope is to get to the UK in early July to spend some time with these boys, their parents, and their aunt, Catherine.

How's that for fast?

On Saturday I gave a keynote address to the New Zealand Labour Party conference. The picture suggests a receiving of the holy spirit in an act of rapture. Despite this being the "day of the apocalypse", I am in fact gesturing to indicate that the world economy is 500 times bigger than our own. Having berated the centre left and centre right for lack-lustre commitment to government investment in science and innovation, I was followed on the next day of the conference by Party Leader Phil Goff promising, if elected, to commit an extra $160 million per annum (~0.1 % of GDP) to the R&D sector, to be paid for by including agriculture in the Emissions Trading Scheme. Of course, it's a long way between making a promise in opposition and being able to act as government, but the Labour Party proposal now puts serious heat on the government, which has, despite announcing its budget last week, come up with no ideas whatsoever for economic growth.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/5037261/Innovation-needed-to-boost-economy

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10727326

The cancer is back

I haven't said much about the state of my health recently. About 6 weeks ago I was alerted to a sudden change when my CEA reading leapt from the previous plateau of 5.2 ng/ml to 9.3 ng/ml over a three week period. I had no doubt at the time that this was real and probably indicated that some residual cancer cells had gone through angiogenesis to get their own blood supply enroute to becoming tumours. After discussing the matter with my oncologist we decided to wait another two weeks for a second reading, and in the meantime consult with the Sydney team of David Morris and Winston Liau.

That second reading, which I obtained last week, showed another rise to 14.3 ng/ml. You can see from the graph that the exponential growth represents a doubling period of three weeks, as fast as I have experienced during the rapid tumour growth phase of 2009.

My options are now somewhat limited. Given the early return of the disease, further peritonectomy/HIPEC surgery is not advised due to a likely poor prognosis. The full range of FDA-approved chemotherapy drugs shown to be effective in colorectal cancer, I have already sampled, namely Oxaliplatin, Capecitabine, Irinotecan and Avastin. The remaining drugs, Cetuximab and Panitumumab are only effective for KRAS gene wildtype (60% of the population), and sadly, I am mutant (40% of the population).

If the disease progresses at this rate, and based on experience in 2009/2010, I will have cm size tumours in a matter of 6 weeks, just about the time I had planned to fly with Miang to the UK to begin a 3 month sabbatical. Clearly we have some major issues to grapple with.

Next week I will have another PET-CT scan. If we can locate the site or sites of the tumour the potential for resection will be considered, a possibility, for example, if there were a single tumour acting as the source of the rising CEA. I have to say that this seems unlikely.

Interestingly, the rise in CEA started 3 weeks upon cessation of Capecitabine adjuvant chemotherapy. I could go back on to Capecitabine soon, or I could try hitting the cancer with the triple cocktail of Avastin/Irinotecan/Capecitabine, which caused a dramatic reduction to a plateau of 8 ng/ml, during 2010. But I am up against evolution and natural selection. All my new cancer cells have experienced those drugs before and it is not at all clear that they would respond a second time.

It's hard to find much good news here, but I am a master at seeing the silver lining in the clouds. I do have confidence in the CEA as a marker for the disease well in advance of radiological indication or physiological symptoms. That means we can at least track the responsiveness to treatments quite sensitively.

After our last discussions, my oncologist and I think the next step may be to try Capecitabine alone, to see if we can stabilise the disease for a while, to give Miang and me some time in the UK with the family. The triple cocktail can be kept in reserve for later use.

The future of cancer therapy is undoubtedly to be found in better understandings of the immune system, and how it can be assisted. My good friend Graham Legros, immunology expert and Director of the Malaghan Medical Research Institute, gave me a tutorial recently. One thing is clear. The immune system is immensely complex and its provocation may well produce beneficial effects. I am considering that, on the basis that I may be "n=1", worthless as medical evidence, but significant given my singular life.

More on that matter later no doubt.

Melbourne weekend

I am surrounded by sisters, Jeanine on my right and Mary, in the pink, on my left.

The occasion was Mary's 60th birthday, and we are in Melbourne, Mary's home. Jeanine, Miang and I travelled over for a few days to share in the celebration. It was a delightful weekend, with scores of friends turning up on the Sunday in a surprise party organised by Mary's husband Tom. But Mary's biggest surprise was the appearance on Saturday morning of Mary's daughter Rebecca, who had flow down from Brisbane to wish her Mum a happy birthday.

During our difficult times last year, these two sisters helped Miang and me immensely. I was so glad to be able to share this time with them.

Remote Rangitikei

On the weekend of 6 May, our friends Chris and Delwyn Clark introduced us to a new part of the North Island, the inland gorges of the Rangitikei river. The river, which rises in the central plateau mountains, cuts its way through papa (clay) country, deepening at a rate of about 4 mm per year. Over tens of thousands of years, the river has created deep gorges, in places 180 m below the surrounding bush and farmland. It is a superb trout fishing river.
Chris and Delwyn organised a weekend together at Tarata Lodge, a farmstead with outlying lodges, overlooking the gorge. The farm is accessed by driving about 22 kms inland from Utiku, just south of Taihape. The route takes you over "Gravity Canyon" the deepest bungy jump in the North Island.

This series of photos shows us on our 3 hour rafting trip down the gorge, and finally, the view from our lodge "River Retreat", topped off with Miang in the hot tub on our verandah.

It was an idyllic weekend, with walks on the farm inspecting the chickens, Llama, goats and rabbits, being entertained by Lodge host and possum-trapper extraordinaire, Steve, and with delicious meals in the farmhouse provided by Steve's wife Trudi.

Steve is full of wonderful tales of the bush and river. He is a "catch and release" fly fisherman who seems to know nearly every fish in the river. The hospitality of Steve and Trudi is really exceptional. Miang and I were so grateful to Chris and Delwyn for bringing us to this place.

If you want a break with a difference, and at extremely reasonable prices, check out Tarata Fishaway Lodge on the web. It is a gem.

Clinical Trials

Look what you can do without any medical training whatsoever. A couple of weeks ago I opened the new Clinical Trials Unit at Wellington Hospital and for my efforts got a plaque on the wall. For that privilege, I had to entertain the guests for about 20 mins. Extracts of my speech follow.

"One of the decisions a cancer patient has to make is whether or not to take the advice of all the well-meaning friends and family members who prescribe cures so numerous that they would fill several lifetimes attempting to try them out.

Amongst the more benign are various fruit or vegetable concoctions, reiki, acupuncture, meditation, prayer and just thinking nice thoughts. And at the other extreme are vegan diets, the swallowing of hydrogen peroxide, and the excessive consumption of apricot kernels, with accompanying risk of cyanide poisoning. And these remedies are just what my friends have suggested!

As a scientist, I guess I instinctively gravitate to what some people call conventional medicine. There have been many wonderful discoveries in medicine. There have been antibiotics, vaccination, chemotherapy and the aspirin. But the possibly the greatest medical discovery, greater than all those things, is the randomized, double blind, placebo-controlled test. You get see if the treatment actually made a difference.

That’s it. That’s how scientific medicine has to work. It sounds simple once you grasp it, but it actually is rocket science. And it is rocket science because of human complexity, and especially because of that measurable phenomenon, the placebo effect. And when you design the test, carry out the study without bias, and then analyse the statistics properly, you get real evidence.

By the way, in my own scientific profession of physics, we seldom do statistics. Unlike the infinite variability of biology, and human patients in particular, atoms are atoms are atoms. Ernest Rutherford, who was never one to mince his words, said, “If your experiment needs statistics, you ought to have done a better experiment.”

He was referring to physics. But in biology, n=1 simply won’t do. And in drug trials, hundreds or even thousands of patients are the norm..........

.....Finally I want to make some very personal remarks, based on my own experience. You have a beautiful hospital, and yes, I know, you need more capital equipment. You have dedicated professional staff, staff who I suspect are overworked and probably underpaid, but the standard of care they give, at least in my experience, is mostly excellent. You have superb IT systems-just visit an Australian hospital at random and see the file boxes and cartons of documents all over the place. Take a blood test, a radiological image, and it is there at the physicians demand. People might call me Paul Callaghan, but I know my true identity. It is EYD7212. When I flash my neutropenic alert card at Accident and Emergency, and utter the magic words EYD7212, they know to whip me past the Courtenay place casualties and straight to the intravenous drip line through the double doors.

But there is also a culture here that we should not take for granted. The personal kindness and care that I have had here has been remarkable. In the Blood and Cancer centre, and what a marvelous place that is, I get to sit among the comrades, greeted by staff who know you personally, who, when asked the cost of the drugs they are pumping into you, feign complete ignorance and unconcern. The district nurses call you at home to check that you are coping well, and they smooth the information flows with the oncologists. And then there are the nurses on the wards. How can anyone be bored for a moment in this hospital, especially with the theatre of the consultants rounds? And what consultants! They have taken the time to talk through difficult issues, treating their patient, at least this one who wanted that, as worthy of an informed conversation, and when asked, they were prepared to partner with other hospitals or the private radiologists and consultants, and all with the help of the cancer society and its programmes that are able to address broader patient needs over and above what can be provided in the busy operation across the road. I have been incredibly lucky.

There is much to be proud of here, and in the profession you practice. And speaking personally, I have come to like the eccentricities of medical practice. The idiosyncracies of surgeons particularly-what a craft that is, beyond contemplation, no double blind placebo-controlled stuff there. Just daring and skill and fearless opinion. I should know, my son is one.

And then there are the oncologists with their difficult role in patient dialogue, telling it tough, -no sugar coated pills there. Thank goodness I know about right-skewed survival statistics (let’s face it, the lower bound is zero, they can’t tell you that you will die yesterday, but of course the upper bound is decades), so bugger the median I say, I’m aiming for the right skew, but bless ‘em, no oncologist will give you false hope by pointing to its existence.

For my first course of chemotherapy, and just to get me started, my oncologist referred me to adjuvant online so that I could read the data for myself. I’ve been a fan for clinical trials and their data ever since. Oxaliplatin, Capecitabine, Irinotecan. Cetuximab, Avastin, I’ve read them all. And for each there is an evidence base for efficacy based on clinical trials.

It doesn’t mean they will work for every individual and that fact is honestly declared, but the fact it that each one has passed a Kaplan-Meier analysis gives me that confidence that it is worth trying it, that it won’t unduly harm me, and it might actually do me some good.

That’s more than can be said for apricot kernels and hydrogen peroxide."

http://tvnz.co.nz/health-news/cutting-ribbon-research-4147548/video

New Zealand High Tech Awards Dinner

On Friday night Miang and I attended the New Zealand High Tech Awards dinner in Wellington, where Magritek was a finalist in the category "High Tech Exporter of the Year-under $5 million per annum". I was filling in for CEO Andrew Coy who was overseas making sales. Sadly, we didn't win, but we had an enjoyable evening out.

The next day Miang and I headed up to the Rangitikei river where we were staying in Tarata Lodge for the weekend. More on that in the next blog.

I am in the midst of a hectic round of speaking engagements relating to the "New Zealand prosperity" theme. One of the more remarkable of these involved a visit to Christchurch on Tuesday last, where I spoke to university students and also appeared on the inaugural "City Life" programme for CTV, the local television company that lost so many of its staff in the building collapse on February 22nd. They were naturally very interested in the result of the HEKE project, and I was able to announce that the 2011 March repayments from overseas NZ ex-students were $2 million higher than last year ("better than a cake stall"), and that the increase from February to March was significantly greater in 2011 than 2010. Whether this is a result of the campaign, I cannot tell. Only three days following the launch of the campaign on 29 March fell in that month. Once Inland Revenue supply with the 2011 April figures we will have a better idea.

Some blog followers have noticed that I have been a bit silent lately, and in particular, have said nothing about my health situation. I have to admit, there has been some discouraging recent data but I am holding off reporting more until we get a clearer picture. Meanwhile I am feeling well.

A picture from the past with echoes present

On Saturday night Miang and I joined friends Linda and Stephen on their converted catamaran home moored at the Seaview Marina. The boat was previously a ferry carrying people to the "hole in the rock" at the Bay of Islands. Sadly we didn't take pictures then, probably being too distracted by the exciting Easter Egg hunt organised by Stephen's daughter Goldie.

By strange coincidence, a photograph from another boat-living friend emerged this week. This picture shows the then home of Joe Trodahl, third from the left, near the entrance hatch of his yacht moored in Chaffers Marina. Next to Joe is Margaret Brown, then Miang and me. On Joe's right is Sophia, daughter of Pablo Etchegoin, who stands precariously against the railing. Julian, Pablo's son, is sitting to my left at the back. Joe tells me the picture was taken (and clearly by his wife Margaret) on December 2 2006.

I sometimes look at such photos of myself in those days of blissful ignorance before my medical adventures, and with the wisdom of hindsight I think, "Silly fellow. You may look and feel well but don't you know what's growing inside you? Don't you realise that you need to book in for a colonoscopy?" I wonder if Pablo has similar feelings?

Kazuo Ishiguro wrote of "The artist of the floating world". Joe's 2006 life was that of "The scientist of the floating world". This is how life really can be in Wellington: rent free, no rates, and seagulls to keep you company. Personally, I prefer the landlubber's life.

The Crazy Optimist

I am living a strange life since the New Zealander of the Year Award. A deluge of speaking invitations from extraordinarily diverse groups and organisations has turned me into a sort of public entertainer.

I am not wasting this opportunity to get a message across with multiple captive audiences. Here are some examples: the Parliamentary Speakers Forum, the Salvation Army, secondary school careers advisors, the New Zealand Medical Students Association, World Class New Zealanders, the Labour Party Conference, Federated Farmers Conference, the Ministry of Economic Development and the Ministry of Social Development. The Parliamentary Greens invited me, then uninvited me when I promised "tough love". What I am delivering is a 20 minute "stump speech" which I vary a bit according to the audience. Thanks to Wendy McGuinness of the "Sustainable Future Institute", the talk got filmed last week and with some IT magic, the powerpoint slides were incorporated to give the YouTube presentation below.

Given our present economic gloom, the talk title represents a degree of optimism bordering on lunacy, namely

"Sustainable economic growth for New Zealand: An optimistic myth-busting approach".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhCAyIllnXY

I should be so lucky

It's a grainy old picture, taken with my iphone, without a flash. But is a delight to me, and to my ego, being flanked by two lovely women.

Miang is "in the pink", and on my left is Lourdes, our Mexican friend of longstanding, at the end of her 7th trip to New Zealand, visiting her son Dafnis, a graphics designer at Magritek.

I first met Lourdes at a rheology conference in Mexico in 1991. We became collaborators and she visited my lab in Palmerston North several times, on the last occasion bringing Dafnis. He liked it so much here he decided to migrate to New Zealand.

Miang has visited Mexico several times, and on her last trip there, in 2010, was wonderfully cared for by Lourdes. Viva Mexico!

This wasn't supposed to be

Nearly a year ago, in early May 2010, Miang and I walked part of the skyline track on the Northern Walkway near Mount Kau Kau. I had just begun chemotherapy, and my oncologists had given me limited survival prospects. It seemed unlikely that I would last much beyond the end of the year, and Christmas 2010 seemed a remote and indistinct place, at best inhabited by a very sick Paul, with some visiting family in attendance.

Today we climbed up KauKau, and again walked the Skyline in perfect weather, this time completing a 3 hour circuit via Crofton Downs. I felt monstrously well, and couldn't help but reflect on all that had passed over the 12 months since last I was up there. What a year it has been, and how much I am aware of the pivotal transitions represented by the triple chemo course I took from April to August, which significantly reduced my tumour burden, and then the extraordinary surgery in Sydney, which, whatever the longer term outcome, has undoubtedly given me a new lease of life, beyond the expectations of early 2010.

I had spent the morning with medical students, opening their conference and participating in a panel discussion on healthcare. The afternoon in the sunshine high up above the city, with views to the South Island, was bliss. Now I have no anxiety about the end of this year.

That is not to say that I believe I will survive 2011. Indeed I have neither knowledge of, nor care about, my lifespan. This last year's experience has brought me to a state of mind where I enjoy each day, dismiss, and if necessary, walk away from, that which detracts from well-lived moments, and I know that my life's duration, as for all of humanity, is as uncertain as it is irrelevant.

Heroic Educated Kiwi Expatriates

On Tuesday, in Auckland, I opened the Salvation Army Red Shield Appeal. It was a great honour to be asked, especially given that I am a publicly declared atheist. But I love the Sallys and their cause is noble.


On the same occasion I launched the HEKE campaign, a call for the New Zealanders living abroad with student loans not being repaid, to move from being Educated Kiwi Expatriates, to Heroic Educated Kiwi Expatriates. 85,000 overseas Kiwis owe $2 billion, and 35,000 are in default. The median debt isn't large, around $18,000. The opportunity is this. Pay back the loan, in your own self-interest, and be celebrated as a hero or heroine for doing so.

New Zealand has taken a huge hit to our economy from the Christchurch February 22 earthquake. The estimates range from $15 billion to $30 billion for the rebuilding, and the taxpayer contribution is at least $7 billion. The student loan offshore is held in a foreign currency and if repaid represents a cost to those other country's other economies.

The appeal is highly controversial. I got the backing of the Reserve Bank Governor in advance, and set up the repayment link with the Inland Revenue Department. The government was informed at the last minute. This is an independent appeal from me, as a member of our expatriate's academic family back home. It is going out on social media with Facebook and Twitter. The website is http://www.heke.ac.nz


In Maori, "heke" means to reduce. By reducing their loans, our ex-students help New Zealand rebuild Christchurch.

My appeal has generated a media storm with a hectic 36 hours of TV interviews, radio interviews and newspaper articles. The response has been 85% positive, though I have had many emails attacking me, and the Facebook wall (http://www.facebook.com/hekeproject) has seen several critical comments, each of which I've tried to answer positively.

I append below a series of TV interviews relating to the project as well as one fascinating newspaper article. I received an email from Hong-Kong, copied to various NZ media luminaries. I answered the email late at night, reply to all, and next day found it to be the front page story in the New Zealand Herald, our biggest (Auckland-based) newspaper. Be careful what you write in an email! Fortunately, I think I replied well, and the feedback was overwhelmingly positive for me.




http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/expat-students-asked-pay-off-their-loans-help-chch-4091032/video

http://tvnz.co.nz/breakfast-news/students-paying-back-loans-sir-paul-callaghan-4-25-video-4091039

http://www.stuff.co.nz/timaru-herald/news/national/4819276/Expats-urged-to-settle-student-loans-for-Christchurch

http://tvnz.co.nz/back-benches/s2011-e6-video-4082522

Radio

http://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/podcasts/audio/29113603.mp3

http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/20110329

The Herald Story




http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10715896


As I told the Dominion Post, if hot coals fall on my head, so be it. I'm too old to care.

Relay for life

The annual Cancer Society "Relay for Life" event was held on Saturday, at Frank Kitts Park down on the waterfront. Teams of ten or more camp out overnight and take part in a walking or running fundraising relay while enjoying a carnival atmosphere. People of all ages participate, and from a complete cross section of the community.

The Relay started with an opening ceremony at 3-30 pm where the guest speaker was Luamanuvao Winnie Laban, a breast cancer survivor and until recently, MP for Porirua. Winnie retired from politics last year to take up a post as Assistant Vice Chancellor Pasifika at Victoria University of Wellington.

She was supported on stage and in the subsequent "lead the walk" event, by Helene Ritchie, a local City Councillor and me, both of us cancer "survivors' and therefor honoured by beaing allowed to wear the red sash. Sitting on stage in the yellow was Deputy Mayor (and VUW Chancellor) Ian McKinnon.

The subsequent pictures show us carrying the banner at the head of the walkers and runners, and lead by a Latin American batucada drum team. I got completely caught up in the pleasure of being among the "comrades" and danced along in the front to the rhythm of the drums.

Miles and Maria Fairburn were with us for the afternoon and the final

picture shows me sitting with them in the park, post opening, with the harbour in the background . Miang was the photographer.

Latest CEA and fireworks in the pipeline

Yes, there is another rise, from 4.9 to 5.2 ng/ml. It's a slow drift upwards, and the rate of growth, if exponential (that's a linear rise on the semilog graph here) is slower than in the first couple of months after the peritonectomy. Miang and I talked with my oncologist today, and we have decided to stop capecitabine chemotherapy for 6 weeks (an equivalent of two cycles) to see what the CEA does in response. It's a way of teasing out some better understanding of the data.

Meantime, I'm feeling well, enjoying life, and enormously busy. The copy-edited book is finally in production (due out in June), I'm busy teaching and I'm meeting an array of speaking commitments. The last one was to about 30 MPs from assorted parties in Parliament on Tuesday night. I'm about to launch a huge project on 29 March 2011. Watch the news media that day and go to http://www.heke.ac.nz. Fireworks are going to happen.

A remarkable 24 hours

On Tuesday last week (before poor Japan's terrible earthquake) I flew to Gisborne along with poet Bill Manhire, historian Lydia Wevers, and science event genius Glenda Lewis.

From Gisborne airport we drove to the tiny town of Uawa at Tolaga Bay, the place where Captain James Cook undertook the first constructive interaction of Europeans with Maori, in 1769. Prior to that, in 1642, Abel Tasman had a disastrous contact involving deaths on both sides, before he retreated from New Zealand, naming the place where he moored his ship, "Murderers Bay". Cook made first mooring in the Bay of modern day Gisborne, and, following a haka by locals, muskets were fired and locals killed. Realising his appalling error, Cook retreated up the coast to Tolaga Bay, where he used the only polynesian on board, the Tahitian chief Tupaia, to assist in contact. It went smoothly and today, residents of Tolaga Bay regard Cook with affection, while 40 minutes drive down the coast, in Gisborne, he is regarded as a villain. Such are the vicissitudes of history.

So why were we there? On June 6 2012 the second transit of Venus of this century will occur, the first having taken place on June 8 2004. Transits of Venus are both rare and predictable astronomical events, with pairs of transits eight years apart separated by long gaps of 121.5 years and 105.5 years, making a 243 year cycle, the periodicity being determined by the ratio of the Earth and Venus orbital periods. Before 2004, the last pair of transits were in 1874 and 1882, and before that in 1761 and 1769. It was the second, 1769, transit that brought James Cook to Tahiti, and subsequently to New Zealand.

This extraordinary event in 2012 will provide a focus for a major occasion, based on the East Coast so as to associate with James Cook, in which leading New Zealand thinkers outline their scenarios for New Zealand's future. Those scenarios will focus on opportunity, and they will be optimistic and bold. A key element of the occasion will be a partnership with local iwi and an expression of their view of the future of Maori New Zealand and the emerging Maori economy.

The local people are known as Te Aitanga-a-Hauiti, a sub-tribe of Ngati Porou, the mainstay of the legendary 28th (Maori) battalion of World War II. They welcomed us with open arms. We visited the local area school, with tamariki from 5 to 18 years old. It is 97% Maori, with remarkable principal Nori Parata. We listened to the kids read their own poetry and Bill read some of his, to their obvious delight. Lydia spoke with them, I spoke with them, and the Gisborne Herald featured the attached picture.

In the afternoon we walked to Cook's Cove, the place where he moored his boat (the second picture).

That evening we were hosted at a wonderful meal in the home of one of the local Maori leaders, in which every speech had to be followed by a waiata (a song), in Te Reo (the Maori language). I could manage three, fortunately, since I spoke three times. The final picture shows one of those waita in progress, with Bill and Glenda in the background. The woman in the foreground to the left is Ngahuia Ngata, a descendant of one of the most famous Maori leaders of New Zealand history, Apirana Ngata. His face adorns our $50 banknote. Ngahuia bears the moko on her face, sign of dignity and pride in Maori women.

These remarkable tangata whenua, the people of 1000 years residency, are extraordinarily adept and erudite in both the Maori and European worlds. We pakeha struggle to make that same transition. But if ever there was a meeting of minds and hearts, this occasion represented it in abundance. We all see a future for our country based on respect and understanding.

PS: Apirana Ngata is responsible for one of New Zealand's best known proverbs:

Ui mai koe ki ahau he aha te mea nui o te ao, Maku e ki atu he tangata, he tangata, he tangata!

Ask me what is the greatest thing in the world, I will reply: It is people, it is people, it is people!

Wanganui Technical College Reunion

Over the weekend of 19th and 20th February, my old High School, Wanganui Technical College, held its centenary reunion. The school is now called City College and is majority Maori, with Principal Peter Kaua, also Maori. On the Thursday before the reunion, I had the honour of addressing the school assembly. The local paper, the Wanganui Chronicle, made quite a splash, and in the article shown, you can see me singing the school song with gusto, no notes needed!

There were some remarkable occasions over those days. As I walked up to the school on the Thursday I saw the familiar face of my old freezing works boss, Vic Gowan. He had come especially to see me, and to tell me proudly that I was one of "his boys" who had "done well".

Another delightful aspect of the reunion was sifting through the old school magazines, but especially the enrolment forms filled out by our parents. There, in the tidy handwriting of my Mum, was her 1960's intent for my future made clear. I was to be a laywer, something she never told me about. I may have disappointed her, but my own daughter Catherine, should have fulfilled her wish, one generation later, and no doubt to her pride.

One of the magazines, from my last year at school, had some cringe-inducing poetry by me, dripping with adjectives, and far too influenced by Dylan Thomas. The class photo here has me at 17, scowling third from the right on the back row, no doubt during my "I am cool" phase.
My brother Jim was also at the reunion, getting a really big turnout from his 1950's classmates. It was a nice opportunity to spend the weekend with him. He is somewhere on the right in the group photo being taken outside the school's wharenui.

On the Saturday night, a renuion dinner was held in the Wanganui Memorial Hall, and I gave the after dinner address. A few tales from the freezing works got the necessary laughs, but there was a serious side to what I told the gathering.

"So what is it about this school that we treasure? Most of us didn’t have silver spoons in our mouth when we were born. None of us were born to rule. We had to build our own futures. That Wanganui Technical College education was our chance and it came with a whole lot of extras. “First be good and then be clever”, “All is overcome by working”, “Speak the truth and play the game”, or as (then principal) Ces Day would say, “Be magnanimous in victory and uncomplaining in defeat.” (We had few opportunities to be magnanimous as I recall). These odd, quaint phrases are burned into our brains. So yes this school has produced its share of famous pupils and I am probably as notorious as any of them. But that is not why this school is great. Its greatness is what you and I have sensed these last two days as we have met our fellow classmates. The school is great because it has produced good people who value education and are themselves well-educated and highly skilled, people who work hard and who add to community by acting fairly and honestly and with kindness. For what is being a New Zealander about if it is not about this civil discourse, this fundamental decency and kindness which marks us out in the world as a special country made up of remarkable people?"

I finish with two photos. One of me with fellow Wanganui-East boy, Rex McKinnon, the other of the river steamer Waimarie, chugging under the Aramoho railway bridge.

"Ko Whanganui Te Awa", this place of my birth, my childhood, my youth, and to which I will always belong.

An extraordinary image

This picture was taken from the Gondola on the Port Hills, the moment the quake struck. The map shows the distribution of earthquakes between September 4 2010 and February 22 2011.

The latter quake was associated with energy release at the eastern end of the fault. The proximity of the epicentre to the Christchurch CBD was the main reason for the destruction.

For an excellent explanation from a GNS scientist see

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuczXoFAgeI

Latest CEA and CT scan results

I learned yesterday that one of our MacDiarmid Institute Principal Investigators has not heard from his wife since she visited the Christchurch CBD on Tuesday. It is likely that she is amongst the casualties. In the context of the tragedy in Christchurch, my solitary health problems pale into insignificance.

Still, I will keep faith with the intent of the blog, to keep friends and family updated on my health progress. This week I had a staging X-ray CT and another (three-weekly) blood test. The CT found no evidence of metastasis, though any relief needs to be tempered with the knowledge that contrast CT is fairly insensitive, and will only see tumours once they are at cm scale. The CEA showed another increase, from 4.5 to 4.9, a slight rate-of-rise increase as can be seen in the graph update. Still, there is no reason to alter my current thinking that while the disease may be recurring, there is still the possibility of post-operative chemotherapy effects.

The severity of the damage

News story from "The New Zealand Herald"
(Photos, Mark Mitchell and The Christchurch Press)

The Pyne Gould building, Canterbury TV and other buildings where most lives were lost are all believed to have been built before a succession of increasingly tough earthquake-resistant standards began in the mid-1970s.

A 2004 change to the Building Act required all local councils to adopt policies to strengthen such buildings to at least one-third of the current building standard.

But engineers say that almost all councils, except Wellington, have adopted merely "passive" policies which do not require strengthening old buildings except when their owners seek new building consents for alterations.

And Auckland University Associate Professor Jason Ingham, a management committee member of the NZ Society for Earthquake Engineering, said the society advocated raising the requirement to two-thirds of the current standard.

"If you improve your building to only one-third of the building standard, it is still 20 times more likely than a modern building to fall down in an earthquake," he said. "At two-thirds, it's only something like three times as likely to fail."

Ironically, Dr Ingham and other international experts were in Christchurch when the quake struck on Tuesday holding a seminar aimed at getting councils to give more urgency to strengthening old reinforced masonry (brick, stone or concrete) buildings.

He said that, even after the first Christchurch quake in September, most councils had not identified buildings at risk in a major earthquake, contacted the owners or developed any plans for how to strengthen them.

"Everybody has to learn from every earthquake. Anyone who feels there is nothing to be learnt is just being naive," he said.

Another Auckland University engineer, Dr Quincy Ma, said Tuesday's building collapses did not necessarily show that the structures were not strong enough, because the quake was so violent.

"The ground motion in Christchurch was over what we expect for a 1000-year return period," he said. "We design for a 475-year return period."

This means the ground shaking from Tuesday's magnitude 6.3 quake was even more violent than Christchurch can expect from a magnitude 8 jolt on the Alpine Fault, which is expected every 300 to 400 years and was regarded as the test that buildings had to be designed for. The fault last moved 290 years ago.

Dr Ma said the fault that shook the city this week had not been identified as a major risk before.

"From the last [September] quake we thought all the lessons had been learnt, but that was just a dress rehearsal for the real test," he said.

Christchurch February 22

Just before 1 pm local time, a 6.3 magnitude earthquake hit 10km southeast of the city. Even though this quake dissipated nearly an order of magnitude less energy than the September 4 2010 quake (magnitude 7.1), its proximity to the surface and to the city centre made its destructive power much greater.

This time, people were caught in collapsing buildings and in falling masonry. The death toll is liable to be in the 100s. Tonight the rescue services are trying to get people out of those buildings.

For a flyover of the quake damage see below. You will see that the destruction is partial, though the majority of buildings which remained standing have sustained damage, some serious.


http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/video-aerial-views-quake-devastated-christchurch-3-12-4038584

5th wedding anniversary

Miang and I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary by taking an Air New Zealand "Mystery Weekend" package. They sent us to Queenstown, a fairly lucky outcome for us. The place really is beautiful. We climbed to the top of Queenstown Hill (950 m), had lunch in Arrowtown, of course sampling the famous Arrowtown pies, visited rural galleries (oh, the lifestyle of artists in Central Otago), drove to Glenorchy and Paradise (one of the more spectacular drives in New Zealand), and enjoyed the delights of Queenstown cafes and restaurants.

Cousins reunion

My mother came from a family of nine girls, as tight-knit a bunch of women as you could find. Their husbands became brothers-in-law whose family life largely centered around the sisters and their off-spring, my cousins, all 38 of them.

Every few years the cousins gather. Their children are banned, so that we will avoid dividing into vertical family groups and instead horizontally connect. This year we met at the Kahuterawa valley near Palmerston North, in the home of Alistair and Anne Hall. This photo shows a lineup of some of my female cousins. What more can I say!

The Tora walk

The Tora Walk is a three day affair, where walkers cross over farmland to the South Wairarapa Coast, up that coast and then back across the third side of the triangle to the starting point. Each night is spent in farmhouse or "shearers quarters" accommodation and all food is supplied by the hosts, three local farming couples who have combined to create this experience. The food is superb and our bags are transported from cottage to cottage, our wine deposited in the fridge at each venue to be waiting for us on arrival. The cost is a mere snip at $415 per head for three nights, all meals inclusive.

http://www.toracoastalwalk.co.nz/

Miang and I did this journey (our third time) with Ed, Carol and Casey Samulski and our dear friend Margaret Brown who has just retired as Manager of the MacDiarmid Institute. Margaret took the first picture. She can be seen in the larger group photo, in the white top and white cap.

Apart from the last night, when the meal (magnificent always) is delivered to the table, the supplied and pre-prepared meal is cooked or heated by the party, with washing up an additional duty, so that all join together in communal activity. The walk can accommodate a party of 14, so that when a smaller group like ours participates, we get to met congenial fellow walkers with whom friendships are made by the end of day three.

Uncle Andy

On Sunday 6th February, we lost a beloved relative, Miang's Uncle Andy Lim, who lived in Sydney Australia. Miang flew to Sydney last week to be with the family and attend the funeral.

I would like to pay my tribute to Andy here.

Uncle Andy was a pioneer of education, a strong supporter of family and a man with a big heart.

Way back in the 1950s, Andy achieved the highest levels of education in chemical engineering in Australia and had a highly successful career as a senior technical manager in the oil industry.

I got to meet him much later in his life, but I took an immediate liking to him. He was a typical Lim, smart, tough, open-minded, wise and kind. He wanted to discuss with me subjects as diverse as quantum mechanics, economics and current affairs. His mind was as sharp as a knife. But best of all was his astonishing generosity and care. He, along with daughter Lily and son-in-law Anthony, was so helpful to Miang and me during my medical trips to Australia.

He was almost the first person I saw when I was coming round in ICU in St George hospital. That was typical of Andy. When he went on holiday he said to us-"have the house, and the Mercedes". That was typical of Andy.

And he did me the honour of sharing with me his confidences, talking to me man-to-man as a family member.

Andy was a vigorous man, way ahead of his time, who remained young at heart in his 80s. I am so lucky to have known him, even if for a short time. Miang and I will miss him very much

AMN-5

This last week has seen the 5th of our MacDiarmid Institute "Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology" conferences here in Wellington. 500 attendees, mostly international, met at the Michael Fowler Centre to hear talks by Nobel Laureate Sir Anthony Leggett, Cavendish Professor Sir Richard Friend, and a range of speakers young and old. For me, one of the best aspects of the meeting is that it has drawn to New Zealand, yet again, wonderful friends, Mark Warner, Suzanne Fielding and of course, Ed Samulski, from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. And Ed, on his 7th visit to New Zealand, brought with him wife Carol and son Casey. Last week we walked the Tora Wairarapa Coastal trail together, and I will post pictures from that walk soon.

Last night was the conference dinner and this picture of Ed and me says something of our mood. It was taken after a surprise event in which colleague Kate McGrath, and three of my ex-graduate students, Andrew Coy, Mark Hunter and Craig Rofe, came to the stage of the Town Hall venue, and gave personal tributes involving anecdotes illustrating my idiosyncracies. Craig spoke last with a wonderful korero followed by an electrifying haka, which I stood to receive, before we ended with a heartfelt hongi.

Ed is one of my dearest friends. He is also a comrade, having been through 42 irradiation sessions for prostate cancer. His PSA (prostate specific antigen) levels are now extremely low and his prognosis is good. Ed's trials took place at the same time as my own last year. Somehow, having a great friend fighting his own battle at the same time as me, gave me extra strength.

More on the awards dinner

Miang and I were given the chance to invite old friends along at the NZer of the year dinner. On the right is Pamela Miller and on the left is Richard Green and Jeanette Miller (no relation to Pamela). I think we all looked pretty good. It is fun to dress up.

The media madness has continued. I've added a link to an "OpEd" the DomPost asked me to provide, as well as a link another TV show below. It was "Good Morning" and I was sandwiched between a cooking spot and some Zumba dancers. It's a whole new demographic for science!

An astonishing story

Last night Miang and I flew to Auckland for the "New Zealander of the Year" awards dinner.
For the last 14 hours I have been in the middle of a media storm, not to mention the 100 emails and endless text messages.





Newspapers
http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/4610988/Scientist-and-man-of-vision-NZer-of-the-Year
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/4610844/Scientist-named-Kiwi-of-the-Year
http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/new-zealander-year-announced-4011907
http://www.wanganuichronicle.co.nz/have-your-say/news/sir-paul-wins-a-top-nz-honour/3939260/
http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/opinion/4628542/Path-to-prosperity-lies-in-technology-niches

TV interviews
http://tvnz.co.nz/breakfast-news/new-zealander-year-professor-sir-paul-callaghan-3-15-video-4012076
http://tvnz.co.nz/good-morning/s2011-sirpaul-090211-video-4018870

Radio interview
http://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/streaming/Audioplayer.asp?filename=http://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/podcasts/audio/03103528.mp3&heading=Sir%20Paul%20Callaghan%20-%20NZer%20of%20the%20Year&longhead=New%20Zealander%20of%20the%20Year,%20Sir%20Paul%20Callaghan,%20speaks%20to%20Mike%20Hosking%20about%20the%20award

I'm now off to the hills for a spot of hiking. No cellphone, no internet. Bliss!

Postscript:
I'm back now-with another full "Inbox". And to my relief, I got the news that my CEA had shown only a very small rise (see graph). I have checked with my Sydney oncologist and while he admits that the disease may be recurring, he also thought it might be possible that "post-operative effects" combined with my current capecitabine chemo regime, may be causing an elevated level.

We will just keep tracking this data. Meanwhile I feel monstrously well.