Academia, England-style

Random Photo that Danny thought was funny:

Oxford may only be the 6th best university in the world (thanks, Stephen, for posting the link), but it's still an amazing place for a weekend trip and conference! Thanks to my cushy connections at the LSHTM, I got to attend a Health Policy conference earlier this week, held at Madgalen College in Oxford. The conference was Monday and Tuesday, but Danny and I headed out on Sunday morning to see just how Oxford compared to Cambridge (which, incidentally, just leaped over Harvard for best university in the world). Although the hands-down verdict is that Cambridge is better (I mean, who punts from inside the boat?!), we had a great time. Highlights of the visit included:

- Visiting Christ Church (which is a college, not a church, although it does have quite a large church), where some scenes from Harry Potter 1 and 2 were filmed, and where Charles Lutwidge Dodgson was inspired to write Alice in Wonderland. Alice was the young daughter of the dean of the college. Every night after dinner the dean would leave via a hidden door and back staircase - the white rabbit was based on him. Alice also had a cat named Dinah who would sit in a tree next to the library.

- Listening to bees. Just so you're assured that Oxford does have a hippy-dippy side, we visited a socio-ecological project where a guy has set up 2 bee hives, with a stethescope in each one so you can sit and listen to the bees doing their thing. It was pretty cool.

- Cream tea

- Dinner at one of Jamie Oliver's Italian restaurants. Tired of going to pubs and finding just one veggie option, we splurged for some home-made Italian goodness. And it was good.

- The Ashmolean museum: art and old things.

- The Museum of the History of Science. Lots of beautiful, hand-made astronomical tools that I don't understand, the original 1940 journal describing the use of penicillin (not that long ago!), several of Marconi's first radios, and a chilling display of the first anesthesia delivery system from the 1840's next to a bone-saw kit from the late 1700's. Ouch.


But it wasn't all fun and games and tea (although we did buy a new game, and we did drink a lot of tea). We were also there to learn. While Danny went to the Bodleian library to read the records of the conservative party, I began in earnest my foray into the social sciences. It was really great to think about the more large-scale aspects of health, rather than just how we treat diseases. Topics ranged from the fairly straightforward (do policies to include patients in safety efforts work, and what determines whether patients want to get involved) to the obscure-but-thought-provoking (focusing on social governance and the fate of all humanity rather than politial and economic gains).

The keynote address happened to be by Ted Marmor, on the recent health care reform in the US, and how we managed to get a "Republican style" plan that no republicans voted for (answer? US senate structure. and some other stuff). But he is hopeful that some of the new laws regarding private insurance may pave the way towards more universal, if not single payer, health care.

Another point that was driven home in this conference is that in the UK, health care policy changes all the time. Yes, the NHS has been in place since 1948, but they (politicians) feel the need to make some slight change every 2-3 years - changing the details GP contracts, changing public health priorities, changing the flow of money. All of which of course means that there's very little time to evaluate policies, and everyone does so under the assumption that they will just change in a few years away. And doctors have just gotten used to the idea that while the policies change constantly, once the dust settles they will go back to practicing medicine as usual. Whether that will be the case with the new White Paper, though, is anyone's guess. But more on that later. For now, it's off to Salzburg!

A birthday in London

Yesterday, as many of you noted with kind messages, was my birthday.  My 28th, a fact you may want to keep in mind for a brief story at the end of this blog post.  As birthdays go, this was a pretty fantastic one: good food, new friends, and more exploration of what London has to offer.

After sleeping in (helped by the fact that the bedroom in our basement is the most underground bit of the whole place, with only a bit of natural light streaming through a small window), Becca made me breakfast, constructed almost completely from this week's haul from the farmers' market.  Scrambled ggs with red onions and cheddar, with a hearty slice of a London Bloomer with tomato, basil, and buffalo mozzarella.  Ten days in, Becca has mastered the art of cooking eggs on a gas stove.

Next we took the Northern Line to Charing Cross for a short jaunt across the City.  We stopped briefly in Trafalgar Square, hopefully for the one and only time this year (except to look out on it from the National Gallery).  The things that seem like perfect destinations as a 17-year-old tourist have a tendency to get rather stale after a decade, I suppose.  Still, Trafagar Square provided a remarkable contrast to the City on a Sunday: the first full of people and general chaos, the second practically devoid of all human activity (the City is London's financial district; with just 8,000 inhabitants, things get awfully quiet when the banks close - think La Défense in Paris).  By the time we reached Fleet Street after following the Strand, we practically had the place to ourselves.

But before that, our first church in London: St Clement Danes.  Designed by Christopher Wren in the late 17th century, it suffered heavy bombing in the Second World War and is now the central church of the Royal Air Force.  Most of the paraphernalia in the church relates to its current function: memorial plaques, flags of RAF units, and the like.  I was struck by its rather wide central aisle and its rather peculiar position in the middle of the Strand.  I suspect that the more time I walking around the mess of streets that is the City, the less striking things like this will be.

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St Clement also claims to be the St. Clement's mentioned in the famous first line of the English nursery rhyme "Oranges and Lemons", though this claim is hotly contested by St Clement Eastcheap.  St Clement Danes does have this plaque... so I'll leave it for you to decide.

Next it was up Ludgate Hill to St Paul's, all the while dittying "Feed the Birds".  I was intrigued by St Martin, Ludgate (another Wren church), but it's now the home of a Chinese congregation on Sundays, so it was closed to the public.

Tons to be said about St Paul's, of course, but we only stopped in for a few minutes on this trip, so I'll save the full report for a later time.  Instead, I'll try to amuse you with signs we saw walking from St Paul's to the Bank tube stop.

I'm a sucker for puns.  Especially when they involve hummus.

That's a street sign, folks.  Not "Poultry Lane" or "Poultry Road."  Just "Poultry."

A double whammy!  A funny-sounding name on one sign, and an obscure, archaic trade on the other.

After a short stop back in Dartmouth Park, we found our way over to Clissold Park in Stoke Newington to try to track down Curve for a bit of birthday ultimate frisbee.  Another warm, sunny Sunday, another London park full of people.  I haven't decided whether it's because Londoners love their parks so much or because they've been trained to soak in every last ray of sunshine in the summer.

We were just looking for some friendly pick-up, but it turns out that Curve had a match scheduled, so we got a full game in our very first appearance.  Good value.  The other team was a friendly bunch of high schoolers who had been playing together since last summer but had never played a competitive match before.  So it was a relaxed, low-key game with a teaching atmosphere.  The fact that a group of 16- and 17-year-olds from Ilford successfully arranged a game with an adult ultimate team illustrates one of the more endearing elements of English sports culture, its essential amateurish-ness.  I don't mean this in a pejorative way (though one does wonder why it's been almost 75 years since a British man won Wimbledon).  Rather, what I find so great is the idea that, on any given day, two teams, regardless of their standard of play, can get together for a game in a park.  Obviously this has its limits, but the prevalence of giant-killing in the FA Cup shows this happens even at the professional level.  You occasionally see major league baseball teams play their minor league affiliates or or university teams in exhibition games, but never in a competitive setting.  The amateurish nature of English sports promotes a rather friendly atmosphere around matches, especially at the lower standards.  In fact, I'm sure we would have gone to the pub with the other team, if not for the fact that the majority of them appeared to be 16 years old.

Not that appearances are always convincing.  Remember that bit above where I mentioned that yesterday was my 28th birthday?  Apparently I don't look it, at least to 16-year-olds.  Having heard my American accent, one of them asked me, "So, are you here on a gap year?"

That's right.  After eight years of post-secondary education and gray hairs that seem to be multiplying by the week, I apparently can still pass for 18 years old.  So here's a question for you, readers: is this a good thing or not?

After a drink at the pub with the friendly folks of Curve, it was back home, but not before a brief stop at the Happening Bagel in Finsbury Park.  It's no Kupel's, but still pretty tasty and left me picking poppy seeds out of my teeth.

Not bad for a day when we got out of bed at 10:30 in the morning.