Christmas with Mrs. Windsor, Novartis and HIV

When you hear that you could go live in Windsor for a weekend, sleepover in some suitably ancient Royal bedroom, get wined and dined at Johnny Taxpayer’s expense, well, you figure very quickly that this is a scam that’s just too good to pass up. Throw in a Christmas dinner cooked up by the Windsor chefs and access to the Royal cellars, and it was almost as good as getting a Burberry trench on Boxing Day for a fiver and change. Except that this cost about thirty quid. Still a steal verging on the obscene. Talk about the perks of an extended medical adolescence.

Anyway, off we went, in a little white van full of earnest post-grad/post-doc types from assorted London colleges (The revenge of white van men on bleeding heart liberals; the radio tuner was superglued to Virgin). But before that, a word about the fond farewells. As we gathered at Reception for the mandatory pre-departure mutual sizing up of the sexes, well rounded short Indian male no. 1 (who shall henceforth be known as Teletubby) escorted moderately pregnant wife right up to me and said in an trembling stage whisper, ‘Ple..ease…. look after her, Nevermind. I caa..n’t make it’. Oh shit. The last time I had to pull out a baby, all I did was hang around and sound encouraging. The woman did the rest. Like women generally do under such circumstances (Trade secret- when push comes to shove, you let 'em push). Not too bad. Cutting the cord wasn’t too much fun, though. Blood on new jeans. Oh, well. Why me? Why did you get her pregnant in the first place, tubbo? Why can’t she look after herself? And why can’t you, Mr. Teletubby Father-to-be, make it?

In case you think the buck stopped just there, no, it didn’t. For some bizarre reason, I ended up in front with a particularly stiff Russian economist and a Danish lawyer who’d been elected to drive. He turned out to be half-Goan and none too pleased with playing driver when he’d rather have been jivvying up the ladies behind (this has nothing to with him being half-Goan, of course). He offered me the wheel, and when I politely declined, shoved an A to Z in my face with barely concealed fury, and said, ‘Then you’ll have to navigate’. I’m crap with maps, but the Economistova wedged between us didn’t look like she could bend herself in any direction, let alone peer at a map in fading light, and so I had to oblige.

To cut a long story short, I navigated them to Reading, missed a turn and ended up back in London. At which point, the red blooded young males behind rose up as one from, well, whatever red blooded young males do in the back of white vans with red blooded young females, and roared, ‘ Hey, can’t ya read a map?’ Talk about stating the bleeding obvious.

We got into Windsor Great Park late. But not late enough for dinner at Cumberland Lodge, which was really good. Truly, when encouraged by expert hands, even Brussel sprouts can taste nice. The roast turkey was a dream, soft and succulent and dripping in fat and well, everything a roast turkey is supposed to be, but never is. But enough about the food. We had some really nice people hosting us, all of whom lived on the Park, and appeared to be vaguely Royal in one way or the other. They were also of rather serious vintage, with my neighbour, a spry retired Major General clocking in at a casual hundred. He said he liked ‘Crazy’. ‘Crazy?!’ ‘The single’. ‘The single?’ Me, baffled, ‘You mean Gnarls Barkley?’ ‘Yes, those American chappies’. ‘Oh’. Me, curious, ‘Where did you get to hear it?’ ‘I downloaded it from i-Tunes’. ‘Oh’.

He turned out to be great fun, this nice hundred year old Major General with the i-Pod fixation.

Sated and feeling terribly chuffed (who wouldn’t feel chuffed after a free go at some very good Chianti?), we were then escorted to a discreetly intimate drawing room of the type where you would expect to find Jane Austen in corset and lace playing the harp. Or something like that. You get my drift. But it was not to be. Instead, we had the anarchic Adrian Mitchell, one of the pioneers of sixties underground poetry, entertain us with some brilliantly outrageous performance verse. Check out the Oxford Hysteria of English Poetry, if interested. Very cool. Actually, make that very very.

At which point of time, I heard the voice of Dr. Vasudev Deshpande, B. Sc (Hons) (Gulbarga University); M. Sc (Distinction) (Delhi University); Ph. D Physics (Bangalore University), lately Visiting Fellow at the University of Kent, for the very first time. Freeze the moment.

This will be continued. I’ve been really bad at keeping promises on this blog, but what happened next in Windsor will take up a full post. Especially since the Deshpande, he of the toothbrush 'tache and double breasted blue blazer with gold buttons, and yours truly, shared a Royal bedroom for two nights. So, more about that later. Hope all of you had a Merry Christmas, and here’s happy hunting at the Boxing Day Sales (For non-aficionados of this particularly British bloodsport, welcome to Hell. It’s called Oxford Street on Boxing Day). And have a rainbow New Year.

Novartis and HIV

Novartis was one of the 39 companies that took the South African government to court five years ago, in an effort to overturn the country's medicines act that was designed to bring drug prices down. Now Novartis is up to it again and is targeting India. It is no coincidence that South Africa and India are number one and two respectively on the AIDS affected list, in terms of sheer numbers.

India produces affordable medicines that are vital to many people living in developing countries. Over half the medicines currently used for AIDS treatment in developing countries come from India and such medicines are used to treat over 80% of AIDS patients in Médecins Sans Frontières projects.....

Read about it here and sign the petition organized by Medecins Sans Frontieres here.