3 Things in May 2025

This month I give some medical advice (sort of), then take you back to the days of disco and end with something a bit lewd.

PMR

Here’s a helpful tip: Create your own personal medical record (PMR), and take it with you every time you interact with a new health professional¹. They are going to ask you to fill out a long form listing your current and previous issues anyway, and if you are like me you will wonder if you remembered everything. So, come prepared with a detailed catalog, and I promise the intake process is a going to be a lot smoother (for you and your doctor/nurse/therapist).

Here is a sample from mine².

Even though I am relatively healthy³, my list of medical details covers multiple pages, including more than a page of immunizations⁴. I have sections for current conditions, previous conditions and procedures, immunizations, current medications (Rx and non-Rx), as well as family history, allergies, and eyeglass prescription.

I cut and paste whatever technical medical gobbledygook is provided in test or examination results. Hopefully my health care professionals know what it means, even if I don’t.

Music Recommendation from the 1970s

I’m starting something new: I’m going to tell you what I think was the greatest⁵ music of the past 50 years. But I will avoid the obvious, and highlight music that particularly resonated for me. My hope is that you might find something new and worthwhile. This month, it’s the 1970s.

That was the time of top 40 lists, and the hits are deservedly well remembered, but it was also the time of late night FM DJs. I spent many evenings listening to the hyper-cool Dave Marsden, Jim Bauer and David Pritchard on CHUM-FM⁶ as well as quirky Alann Mcfee on CBC’s Eclectic Circus. I was sucked into the “progressive rock” world of Yes, ELP, King Crimson, and others. I still love much of it, but rarely listen to it now. I also became a bit of an evangelist for Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel, whose glam persona captured a lot of the drama and angst I felt at the time (and maybe still do).

But if I had to pick one album that I admire most from that period, one that I think was extraordinarily innovative and which absolutely stands the test of time, it is not rock and roll at all⁷. I would pick Steve Reich’s “Music for 18 Musicians”. IMHO it is the pinnacle of the minimalist movement. It’s simple and it’s complex, it’s joyous and it’s rigorously structured.

It is perfect⁸.

Oooh…. What a Lucky Man⁹

You likely know of the Bayeux Tapestry. It’s a 70 metre long work of embroidery telling the story of William’s conquest of Britain in 1066. But I bet you don’t know how many penises are shown. In 2018, Oxford Professor George Garnett counted them; I guess somebody had to do it. He found that most, 88, belong to horses, but there are a few attached to humans. Professor Garnett found 5, but Dr Christopher Monk thinks he missed one. He says Garnett mistook one for a scabbard.

Decide for yourself. The questionable genitalia are shown in the picture at the top of this post¹⁰. Dr. Monk’s analysis is here.

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1. The sad reality is that this happens more and more frequently as time passes. The sooner you start compiling your PMR, the easier its going to be to keep it up to date. ↩︎
2. I blurred the details because it is none of your damn business. But of anyone wants to listen to a litany of my minor health issues, just let me know. I’d be happy to oblige. ↩︎
3. So far. ↩︎
4. Mostly flu and COVID shots, but still, it’s hard to remember it all. ↩︎
5. IMHO YMMV ↩︎
6. Ironically, I now live on the site in mid-town Toronto where their studios once stood. ↩︎
7. Although it did get airplay on CHUM-FM ↩︎
8. I tell HVW that it’s the music I want played at my funeral, and I’m only half joking. ↩︎
9. Apologies to Keith Emerson, Greg Lake and Carl Palmer for appropriating a line from their song. ↩︎
10. Don’t read anything into the fact that the man depicted appears to be fair skinned, but his dangly bit is dark. The black colouring is due to some 19th century restoration work. ↩︎