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Potentially inappropriate prescription of antidepressants in old people: characteristics, associated factors, and impact on mortality
- Anne Hiance-Delahaye, Florence Muller de Schongor, Laurent Lechowski, Laurent Teillet, Jean-Jacques Arvieu, Jean-Marie Robine, Joël Ankri, Marie Herr
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- Journal:
- International Psychogeriatrics / Volume 30 / Issue 5 / May 2018
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 17 November 2017, pp. 715-726
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Background:
The increasing use of antidepressants (ADs) has raised concerns about their inappropriate use in old people.
Objective:To examine the prevalence of potentially inappropriate prescribing (PIP) of ADs, their associated factors, and their impact on mortality in a sample of old people in France.
Methods:The analysis used data from the SIPAF study, a cross-sectional study consisting of 2,350 people aged ≥ 70 years. Trained nurses interviewed participants at home between 2008 and 2010. Information was collected concerning socio-demographic and health characteristics, including medication use. The study population consisted of the 318 AD users from the SIPAF study (13.5%). PIP of ADs was defined according to national and international criteria. Factors associated with PIP of ADs were assessed using a multivariate logistic regression model. The influence of PIP of ADs on mortality was assessed using a Cox model (median follow-up 2.8 years).
Results:Among the SIPAF study, 71% of AD users were female and the mean age was 84 ± 7 years. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) were the most prescribed ADs (19.8%). We found PIP of ADs in 36.8% of the study population, mainly the co-prescription of diuretics with SSRIs (17.6%) and the prescription of tricyclics (12.9%). PIP of ADs was associated with polypharmacy (aOR5-9 drugs 2. 61, 95% CI 1.11–6.16 and aOR≥10 drugs 2.69, 95% CI 1.06–6.87) and comorbidity (aOR3-4 chronic diseases 2.59, 95%CI 1.04–6.44 and aOR≥5 chronic diseases 2.33, 95%CI 0.94–5.79), and increased the risk of mortality during follow-up (aHR 2.30, 95%CI 1.28–4.12).
Conclusions:This study shows that more than one third of AD prescriptions may be inappropriate in old people. PIP of ADs was related to polypharmacy and comorbidity and increased mortality among AD users.
Contributors
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- By Holger Afflerbach, Mustafa Aksakal, Stéphane Audoin-Rouzeau, Stephen Badsey, Annette Becker, Jean-Jacques Becker, Volker R. Berghahn, Donald Bloxham, Bruno Cabanes, Olivier Compagnon, Annie Deperchin, John Horne, Jennifer D. Keene, Paul Kennedy, Hans-Lukas Kieser, Gerd Krumeich, Nicola Labanca, Christoph Mick, John H. Morrow, Bill Nasson, Michael S. Neiberg, Robin Prior, Gary Sheffield, Jay Winter, Guoqi Xu
- Edited by Jay Winter, Yale University, Connecticut
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- Book:
- The Cambridge History of the First World War
- Published online:
- 05 December 2013
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- 09 January 2014, pp xv-xvi
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Looking about you
- C. D. Poster
- Illustrated by Robin Jacques
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- Read Write Speak
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- 05 June 2016
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- 26 September 2013, pp 106-113
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Summary
When I was your age I lived in London and corresponded regularly with a boy of my own age who lived in Paris. One summer our parents decided we were old enough to exchange visits. He came to my home first. For the first time in my life I realised how little I knew about my own birthplace. The day after he arrived, for instance, I took him to Hyde Park. ‘Why is it called Hyde Park?’ he asked me. ‘Why is the Serpentine so called? Where does the water come from? Whose statue is that? How large is the Park? To whom does it belong?’ These and a hundred other questions opened my eyes to my appalling ignorance about my own city. Before long I had bought a guide book in an endeavour to keep ahead of my friend's curiosity.
It was not merely the history of London's famous landmarks that I learnt as a result of my friend's visit. I learnt to see through a stranger's eyes. ‘Where shall I post my letter?’ he asked on the day he arrived. ‘Why, there!’ I replied in amusement. We were standing opposite a pillar-box. It was only then that I learnt that not in every country were post boxes red in colour and cylindrical in shape. I began to see people differently too. The shop assistant from whom we bought a block of chocolate acted, so I learnt, differently from the Parisian shop assistants. Pierre commented on the behaviour and attitudes of our bus conductors, railway officials, children, parents, postmen, everyone. In two weeks I learnt more about London and the English than I had learnt in my entire life before. Long after I had ceased to correspond with him, I still thought of him gratefully as the boy who had opened my eyes to my own home and country.
There are a number of books about people in strange countries, both fact and fiction. Here is an extract from High Road Home by William Corbin, to give you an idea of the United States as seen by a French boy.
19 - Diaries
- C. D. Poster
- Illustrated by Robin Jacques
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- Read Write Speak
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- 05 June 2016
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- 26 September 2013, pp 123-132
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Summary
When I was at school I received at least one diary each year as a Christmas present. By breakfast-time on Christmas Day I had read through all the Information pages, until I could tell anyone what it cost to send a 2 oz. letter to Paraguay or at what age a puppy had to have a dog licence. I had also decided that I would make a New Year's resolution to write up the diary every day for the whole of the next year. By the middle of January, there had already been one or two gaps that I had filled only with difficulty; and by the end of January I had thankfully mislaid the wretched thing. How many of you began a diary at the beginning of this year? And how many of you are still keeping it? We are very grateful to some people who have kept diaries. From them we have learnt a great deal that has made the history of their times come alive. Probably the best-known diary of all times is that of Samuel Pepys. From it we have wonderful eye-witness accounts of the Great Plague of 1665 and the Fire of London of the following year.
The Fire of 1666 was the greatest calamity London had until the Blitz in the Second World War. It lasted four and a half days. It destroyed about four-fifths of the city where over 300,000 people lived. It burned 13,000 buildings—houses, shops, churches and public buildings.
Pepys saw the fire first when one of his maids woke him early one Sunday morning to tell him of a great fire in the City. He thought it a far-off negligible little blaze, and went to sleep again.
At seven, as he was dressing, he looked again at the fire. It seemed to have died down and was farther off. Soon the maid came in with news of the fire. She had heard‘ that above 300 houses had been burned down tonight by the fire we saw, and that it is now burning down all Fish Street by London Bridge’. To find out if the rumour was true, he walked to the Tower and climbed ‘upon one of the high places’. In the south-west along the river was ‘ an infinite great fire’.
News… and Views?
- C. D. Poster
- Illustrated by Robin Jacques
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- Read Write Speak
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- 05 June 2016
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- 26 September 2013, pp 126-131
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RECORDER REGRETS PASSING OF BIRCH
BOY'S APPEAL FAILS
The Recorder of Y told the father of a boy of 14 at Y Quarter Sessions yesterday: ‘ If I could order your boy to be birched I would. But unfortunately I can't.’
He dismissed the boy's appeal against committal to an approved school for receiving stolen cigarettes. Told that the boy had previously been warned at the age of 12 for receiving cigarettes at school, the Recorder asked the boy's father: ‘What did you do to knock the nonsense out of him when he brought these cigarettes home?’
The father: ‘I didn't hit him.’
The Recorder: ‘Why not? You are his father and you did nothing about it. How did you punish the boy?’— ‘By stopping his pocket money.’
’ Were you brought up by a father who was strict?’—‘I wasn't hit, sir.’
’ I was and I haven't been convicted for these offences,’ the Recorder retorted. In the old days he could have given the boy half a dozen with the birch, he added. That power had now been taken away from him. ‘ If I had it, I would use it, and he would be a much better boy too.’
This item of news appeared in a newspaper a few years ago, but it might well have appeared in yesterday's paper. It tells of a common enough incident: a young lad in trouble. It would scarcely be interesting to us if the report went no further than the first six lines. We learn these facts:
a boy of fourteen had appealed to the Quarter Sessions against a decision [by the Magistrates of the Juvenile Court] to send him to an approved school for receiving stolen cigarettes.
This was his second appearance in Court for such an offence.
The Recorder upheld the Magistrates' decision.
It was not within the Recorder's power to order a birching.
These are facts: but if you look at the Recorder's actual first statement as quoted in the newspaper you will see that it contains something more than fact. It contains the Recorder's opinion, his views on the value of corporal punishment in correcting juvenile crime. One word in particular indicates that in his opinion the law he has to administer is wrong.
9 - Facts and Figures
- C. D. Poster
- Illustrated by Robin Jacques
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- Read Write Speak
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- 05 June 2016
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- 26 September 2013, pp 63-67
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Wanted by the Police
- C. D. Poster
- Illustrated by Robin Jacques
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- Read Write Speak
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- 05 June 2016
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- 26 September 2013, pp 62-70
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Summary
A powerful four-door saloon glides to a halt by the kerbside. Quickly two men leap from the nearside doors, one with a half-brick in his hand, both holding small sacks. A third man comes from the offside, a length of metal piping in his hand. The driver remains at the wheel of the car, his engine running. All wear hats, raincoats with the collars turned up, and scarves over the lower part of their faces.
Crash! As the brick goes through the jeweller's window, the first two run to the jagged hole, while the third covers their retreat. They know exactly what they want. In less than thirty seconds they are racing back to the car. From the shop comes a startled assistant. He lunges at the rearmost of the men and receives an elbow in the throat for his pains. As he falls, gasping for breath, he courageously snatches at the hat and scarf of the raider. Four passers-by have a momentary glimpse of the thief's face. Then he too is in the car, the engine races, gears slam and they are gone.
‘Did you see him?’—‘Whatever happened?’
‘What did he look like?’—‘Oh, that poor man from the shop. Do something for him, somebody.’—‘Darkhaired, wasn't he?’—‘ No, not dark exactly, sort of brown.’
‘Has anyone phoned for the police?’—‘He had a moustache, anyway.’—‘Don't be daft, he was cleanshaven.’—‘ About five foot nine, I would say.’—‘Never.Why, he wasn't as tall as my husband.’—‘What was he wearing?’—‘Quite a young chap, I thought. What did you think?’
Four people saw him, for a few seconds only; and four people will give four very different descriptions to the police. They will say what they saw; they will say what they thought they saw; and they will say what they heard others say they saw. Out of this garbled information the police will have to compile a description of the wanted man.
They will do it methodically. First the witnesses will separately give their accounts of what happened and their descriptions of the man they saw. By skilful questioning the officer will prompt each witness to a more accurate account of the man's features.
15 - In the Dark
- C. D. Poster
- Illustrated by Robin Jacques
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- Read Write Speak
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- 05 June 2016
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- 26 September 2013, pp 96-100
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In Bristol Zoo there is a Nocturnal House. Here, day has been turned into night, and those animals which normally sleep during the day—bush babies, genets, bats and other creatures of the dusk and dark—are fully active. Two doors prevent the bright daylight outside from disturbing the animals: one must be closed before the other is opened. As you enter the House you are momentarily quite blind. You would not know if a black panther crouched a yard away from you, waiting to spring. Then, gradually, faint shreds of light from behind the glass-fronted cages give you the impression of moving shapes as a pardine genet paces restlessly up and down. In another cage two large button eyes pick up a glint of light and, as you move close, around them you slowly distinguish a fur ball of a body, ears and long curling tail. Searching the gloom, you pick out a second and a third.
By the time you are ready to leave you can see with comparative ease. As fresh visitors come to the House you are amused to see them fumble and turn in the dark. For all they know, a black panther crouches a yard away from them waiting to spring….
When I was your age, I lived in Cornwall. We used to walk to the top of a nearby earn and dare each other to jump across the boarded-up mouth of a disused mineshaft. We scratched our hands, our legs, even our faces on the dense brambles that grew there. We gashed our knees on stones, we twisted our ankles.
Then one day we read in the newspaper that a boy from a nearby village, losing his way on a hillside one dark night, had stumbled on the lip of a shaft and fallen through the rotten boarding. Fortunately, he had landed on a ledge not very far down. After that, we played less risky games!
Imagine that you are regaining consciousness lying on a ledge in the dark, part way down that mineshaft. (Have you ever had an operation, or a tooth extracted by gas? What were your feelings as you came round? What shapes and colours could you see?) As your head clears, reach out your hand. What do you feel? Look around you, look up. What do you see? Dare you look down?
Dead Man's Chest
- C. D. Poster
- Illustrated by Robin Jacques
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- Read Write Speak
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- 05 June 2016
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- 26 September 2013, pp 52-61
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Nowadays we have air pirates, both in fact and in fiction, and soon we may have space pirates, but it will be surprising if schoolboys—and schoolgirls for that matter— ever tire of the stories of the sea pirates. The best known of the buccaneers, or ‘gentlemen of the high seas’ as they liked to be called, lived in the early years of the eighteenth century. For fifteen of the first twenty years of that century England was at war, first with France and Spain, later with Spain alone. Many merchant ships were given a royal commission to act as privateers: although not properly men-o'-war, they were handsomely rewarded for the interception and capture or sinking of any of the merchant vessels belonging to the enemy.
This was at a time when the riches of the West Indies, North and South America, and the African continent were being shipped to the ports of Western Europe as fast as the schooners, brigantines, galleys, frigates and sloops of five nations could carry them. What a temptation it must have been to any privateer when a heavily laden vessel belonging to one of our allies, a Dutch ship, say, or even an English merchantman, hove into view. Many a privateer soon turned pirate, attacking French, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, English and American shipping, friend and foe alike.
They were not short of men. Captured sailors, whatever their nationality, readily signed on; and many an ill-fed, poorly paid merchantman crew needed only the encouragement of a pirate sail on the horizon to mutiny against their officers and to claim their share of the gold and silver, silks and ivory, sugar, rum and slaves stowed in their holds.
For a pirate, it was usually a short life and a merry one. A few, when they tired of life on the high seas, settled in the smaller islands of the West Indies or on the Madagascar coast, to marry into friendly native tribes and live like kings. A few returned secretly to their home country and settled down as prosperous and respectable citizens. Some English pirates took advantage of a Royal Pardon, for King George soon found his own pirates far more troublesome than the enemy.
Disaster!
- C. D. Poster
- Illustrated by Robin Jacques
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- Read Write Speak
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- 05 June 2016
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- 26 September 2013, pp 93-98
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17 - MACHINES
- C. D. Poster
- Illustrated by Robin Jacques
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- Read Write Speak
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- 05 June 2016
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- 26 September 2013, pp 109-115
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Summary
Place the feet upon the rests and press down each in turn in a forward direction. This movement rotates a toothed wheel clockwise. The teeth engage in the links of a chain and, by driving the chain forward, cause a second toothed wheel to the rear of the chain to rotate, also in a clockwise direction.
Draw the diagram that illustrates this description. Of what is it a description?
Useful as diagrams, charts and illustrations are, they are rarely a satisfactory substitute for words. It is difficult in a diagram, for example, to direct the reader's eye to the point at which you want him to start and to make him follow a series of instructions in the correct order. Words and illustrations should help each other to give the full meaning. What the diagram more clearly shows, the words need not.
There is the same difference between our choice of words for the description of a process and for an imaginative composition as there is between a diagrammatic drawing and an imaginative painting. What points of difference can you think of? This does not mean that you do not have to use your imagination in the writing of facts. You need to imagine yourself in the place of your reader (and you would do well to imagine also that your reader, while not an idiot, is not exactly quick-witted!). Then say to yourself: Have I started at the beginning? Have I gone point by point to the end? Have I rushed over any stage of the description? Above all, is it as short and concise as it can reasonably be? Have I chosen my words with accuracy and care?
A. Draw in diagrammatic form any piece of machinery you know well (a sewing machine or a racing car, for example), number the important parts in this way and name these parts in a key below or alongside your drawing. Choose three parts and give a clear account of the work they do.
B. Fifteen to twenty years ago there died a very amusing illustrator named Heath Robinson who specialised in drawing complicated and idiotic machinery made of bits of string and wire, springs and odd angles of metal, and so on. He was so famous that, when I was your age, any very home-made piece of machinery was described as a ‘Heath Robinson contraption’.
A Journey by Road
- C. D. Poster
- Illustrated by Robin Jacques
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- Read Write Speak
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- 05 June 2016
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- 26 September 2013, pp 12-18
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If your father owns a car, it is probable that he is a member of one of the two main motoring organisations, the A.A. or the R.A.G. Both provide many services to motorists, particularly in the event of a breakdown. If you have been on holiday by car, you may have made use of their route guides. On page 13 you will see reproduced a sheet from such a route. The left-hand side, reading from top to bottom, gives you instructions for your journey and the mileage between one place and another. The right-hand side, reading from bottom to top, is a map of your route.
The left-hand side is, of course, much abbreviated. Once you have met the abbreviation, it is not difficult to remember, for example, that S.P. means signpost.
A. Make use of both instructions and map to continue this factual description of the journey:
Leave Barnstaple by the Newport Rd., which is the A 361. After four and a half miles you will come to Swimbridge. Out of Swimbridge there is a steep hill to climb, Kerscott Hill. The next town is South Molton, seven miles further along the A 3 6 1….
B. The route sheet you have here contains most of the abbreviations used by the A.A. in their route guides. Here, in no sort of order, are those abbreviations not shown:
Compile a complete list of abbreviations used, in alphabetical order, and supply their meanings.
C. The next exercise will be better done—unless your memory is extremely accurate—if you make a journey, either on foot, by cycle, or, if you are very persuasive, by car. Imagine that you have been asked to work out for a group of friends a walking route between two points from one to two miles apart in your home town; or a three- to six-mile ramble; or a five- to ten-mile cycle trip; or a fifteen- to thirty-mile car ride. Prepare a route guide, in the style of the A.A. route sheet, using the list of abbreviations you have compiled.
D. On the opposite page you see a drawing of a derelict farm cottage miles from anywhere.
Advertisements
- C. D. Poster
- Illustrated by Robin Jacques
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- Read Write Speak
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- 05 June 2016
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- 26 September 2013, pp 132-136
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What a wonderful world we live in—if one were to believe everything that appears in print. For a few shillings spent on this lipstick or that foundation cream every girl can be beautiful, no matter how plain nature has intended her to be. One haircream makes all the girls swarm about this boy (you know it must be true because there's a picture to prove it!) and another shampoo makes all the boys swarm about this girl. What, I wonder, would happen if all the boys used the haircream and all the girls the shampoo? Who would be swarming where? The latest electric cooker, refrigerator, or washing machine is only 79 guineas, and those who cannot afford this can pay in easy instalments. Its operation is so simple that a child can work it. Everybody who matters has one. It is essential to the modern home.
Now there is nothing wrong with advertising itself. We want to know what a manufacturer has to sell, we ought to know before we buy it what it will do, and we must know what it will cost to buy, and, often, to run. Equally there is nothing wrong with the words only, easy, essential, modern, and so on. There is something wrong, however, in the abuse of words, and these words and many others can be abused in advertisements.
A. Let us first examine the word essential. What does it mean? Now make a list of the apparatus and equipment that is essential for a kitchen for, say, a young married couple without children. It is possible, of course, to cook your food on a stick over an open fire, but I am not suggesting that we should return to primitive conditions. When you have discussed and agreed this list of kitchen essentials, make a second list of items of equipment that are regularly advertised with the suggestion that no housewife should be without them. If these are not in fact essential, are they desirable? Are they economical? labour-saving? time-saving? Do they contribute to the health or peace of mind of the housewife? Discuss each in turn.
Take a Look at Yourself
- C. D. Poster
- Illustrated by Robin Jacques
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- Read Write Speak
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- 05 June 2016
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- 26 September 2013, pp 78-84
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‘How grey you have become!’ say some of my friends when they meet me after not having seen me for several years. Those who see me every day appear not to notice it. I scarcely notice it myself. The face I see in the mirror each morning looks to me very much like the face I have seen every morning of my adult life. Only when I compare it with a photograph taken when I was younger, can I see the difference.
‘How your city has changed!’ I said recently to a Birmingham friend when I revisited the city after some years. ‘Changed?’ he said. ‘Oh, yes, I suppose it has. When you live in a place you don't notice changes.’
There is a saying: the onlooker sees most of the game. And you have doubtless heard people use the expression: I can't see the wood for the trees. To see clearly, we must at times step back, either in fact or in our imaginations. Those of you who are good at Art will know what I mean. After working at a painting or drawing for some time, you will probably lean back in your chair, or walk away a pace or two, in order to see the picture as a whole. Or your teacher may come along and ask a question or make a suggestion that may show you how to improve your work. Even a friend who knows less about Art than you do may, by saying ‘Isn't there something wrong with that elephant?’ or ‘ I don't much like the colour of that sky’, show you a weakness in your work you had not noticed.
We are all very tender about being told that there is something wrong with our work, or our appearance, or our characters. In fact most people seem to believe that to criticise means to find fault with, whereas it means to indicate good and bad points. The best way to avoid the adverse criticism of others is, of course, to step in first and be self-critical. Weigh up yourself and your work carefully: you will find that others will find less and less fault with you because you will have found it already.
14 - Seeing and Observing
- C. D. Poster
- Illustrated by Robin Jacques
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- Read Write Speak
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- 05 June 2016
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- 26 September 2013, pp 89-95
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I can tell a flycatcher from a sparrow at two hundred yards, although at that distance I can no longer see any difference between their plumage. I have observed that the flycatcher's way of flying is quite distinct, that it favours a particular part of my garden, and that its behaviour is quite recognisably different from that of the sparrow. Ask me, however, what make of car any one of my neighbours or friends runs, and I doubt whether I could give you the correct answer more than once in ten. I see their cars daily, probably more often than I see the flycatchers. Yet, because I have no interest in makes of cars, I fail to observe their shapes.
There are people who go through life seeing, no doubt, as much as you or I do, but observing little or nothing. There are others full of interest in everything that comes before their eyes, who are constantly making discoveries for themselves which are quite as important, to them, as the discoveries of scientists and engineers and explorers that are reported in our newspapers.
Here are some tales about animals that people believed for hundreds of years (indeed, some people still believe some of them) because they saw, but did not observe.
Bear cubs are born shapeless and are licked into shape by the mother bear.
When danger threatens, adders swallow their young.
Swifts and swallows hibernate during the winter at the bottom of ponds.
In September, cuckoos change into sparrow-hawks.
Porcupines cast their quills like spears at an enemy.
What gave rise in each case to these mistaken beliefs? Can you think of a reason why each one has persisted so long?
Because you cannot observe everything for yourselves you must at times take the word of others. You will, I hope, pay most attention to those who have seen for themselves and are not merely relaying to you what someone else has told them long since.
Here, from a book called Nature Detectives, is an account of the behaviour of grey squirrels:
Mr Thornley was staring intently at something higher up in the trees, and following his glance Robert saw something flicking and jerking on a bough. It looked rather like a snake. Suddenly the thing took shape—it was a squirrel, crouching quite still except for its jerking tail. It was staring hard at the drey.
20 - The Fox's Foray
- C. D. Poster
- Illustrated by Robin Jacques
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- Read Write Speak
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- 05 June 2016
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- 26 September 2013, pp 133-138
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Do you know a poem called ‘The Fox and the Goose’?
The fox jumped up on a moonlight night,
The stars they were shining and all things bright;
‘ Oh, ho!’ said the fox, ‘ it's a very fine night For me to go over the down, O.’
The fox soon came to a farmer's yard,
Where the ducks and the geese were sore afeared;
‘The best of you all shall grease my beard When I trot home to my den, O.’
Old Gammer Hippie-Hopple hopped out of bed,
She opened the casement and popped out her head;
‘ Oh, husband! oh, husband! the grey goose is dead, And the fox is gone through the town, O.’
The fox and his wife, without any strife,
They cut up the goose without fork and knife,
And said 'twas the best they had eat in their life,
And the young ones picked the bones, O.
A class I was teaching a few years ago liked it so much that we decided to turn it into a radio play.
Their first task was to set the scene. There is not, you may say, much clue to it in the poem. We learn that it is a bright moonlight night, and that is all. However, it did not require much effort to begin to imagine the scene. This is how their play opens:
First Narrator. The moon, breaking out from behind the scudding clouds, illuminates the clock on the tower of the village church. The clock, old as it is, tells truly that it is midnight.
The silver light of the moon shows us, too, a grey ribbon stretching endlessly across the undulating moors; it is the road leading to the isolated farm of Farmer Hippie-Hopple, far from the hustle and bustle of town and city.
Second Narrator. Here an unnerving quiet lingers, broken only by the groaning of the gnarled and weatherbeaten trees, grotesque figures standing in a semi-circle behind the farm.
The Storyteller
- C. D. Poster
- Illustrated by Robin Jacques
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- Read Write Speak
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- 05 June 2016
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- 26 September 2013, pp 1-11
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Adventures with Animals
- C. D. Poster
- Illustrated by Robin Jacques
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- Read Write Speak
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- 05 June 2016
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- 26 September 2013, pp 38-51
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One of the best of a number of good writers on animals is Gerald Durrell. In The Drunken Forest he relates his and his wife's adventures in Paraguay in search of rare South American animals.
Next to the parakeets in the collection—who were shrill little friends—probably the noisiest and most cheeky of our birds were the two pileated jays. These birds are similar to the English jay in shape, though smaller and of a slighter build. Here, however, the resemblance ends, for pileated jays have long, magpie-like tails of black and white, dark velvet backs, and pale primrose-yellow shirt-fronts. The colouring on the head is extraordinary. To begin with, the feathers on the forehead were black, short and plushy, and stuck up straight, so the bird looked as though it had just had a crew cut. Behind this, on the nape, the feathers were smooth, and formed a sort of bluish-white marking which resembled a bald patch. Above each bright and roguish bronze eye was a thick ‘eyebrow’ of feathers of the brightest delphinium blue. The effect of this peculiar decoration was to give the birds a permanent appearance of surprise.
The jays were inveterate hoarders. Their motto was obviously ‘waste not, want not’. Any other bird given more minced meat than it could eat would have wastefully scattered it about the cage, but not so the jays; all those bits which they could not manage were carefully collected and stored in, of all places, their water-pot. For some reason they had decided the water-pot was the best place in which to keep their supply of food, and nothing we could do would make them alter their opinion. I tried giving them two water-pots, so that they could store their meat on one and drink out of the other. The jays were delighted with the idea and promptly divided up their meat and stored it in both water-pots. They would also store peanuts, of which they were inordinately fond.
Open Your Eyes
- C. D. Poster
- Illustrated by Robin Jacques
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- Book:
- Read Write Speak
- Published online:
- 05 June 2016
- Print publication:
- 26 September 2013, pp 19-30
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Summary
Emma opened her eyes. She was sitting on the bench with her head thrown back and the sun, which she had felt so often, was shining through gaps in the leaves of the tree above. She could see what they called colour. But it wasn't like anything they had described. She looked first at the sun. But she had to look away from it, the all-beautiful, all-glorious sun, before she could even think of what it was like. It was like looking at God, too dazzling. In that one instant colour came so crowding in on her that she closed her eyes again.
She clenched her fists, remaining very still; but her heart raced, as she thought,‘It's happened! It's happened! Oh God! Thank you! It's happened!’ And yet was it possible? Could such a thing happen?
Emma opened her right eye just a fraction, so that she could see between her eyelashes, and it was true. There was the green of grass, sewn with buttercups and dandelions like brass buttons, and the white petals and yellow centres of daisies.
A sudden chill of fear struck her and she closed her eyes again. This was very, very dangerous. She had read descriptions of colour in books, and people had told her what things looked like in colour, but none of them had conveyed to her even the tiniest fraction of what she had already seen was the most miraculous and beautiful thing in the whole world, the infinitely varied glory of colour. There was not one green but tens of thousands of different shades of green; and when they said grass was green, it was also yellow and brown and nearly black in places, and in others nearly white.
Perhaps people who had seen colour all their lives had never noticed that, or had just grown lazy about looking, calling grass green because it was more green than it was any other colour. And then she would be tempted to tell them that they had never really looked at colour, and they would say ‘How do you know?’ They would laugh and say ‘You're colour-blind and yet you pretend to know!’ She tried to remember what General Principle* had said.
18 - No Noses
- C. D. Poster
- Illustrated by Robin Jacques
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- Book:
- Read Write Speak
- Published online:
- 05 June 2016
- Print publication:
- 26 September 2013, pp 116-122
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Summary
‘They haven't got no noses
The fallen sons of Eve.
Even the smell of roses
Is not what they supposes….’
What the dog says in this poem is true. Human beings have very little sense of smell. A cat scents a mouse and traces it to its place of hiding. A trained police dog will follow the day-old scent of a criminal for many miles, after he has been given a scrap of clothing worn by the hunted man. A stag turns his head to the wind and flares his nostrils wide as he picks up the scent of the animal that stalks him hundreds of yards away. Man pays a price for civilisation. Because he no longer needs a sense of smell as a signal to alert himself to attack or defend, he is able to identify only scents of extreme sweetness, or strength, or bitterness. What is more, he has in the last century dulled what little sense of smell he had left by filling the air of his towns and cities with the overpowering stench of factory smoke, petrol and diesel exhaust fumes and the gases of burning chemicals. How strange it would seem if we could suddenly smell as clearly as we can see, and recognise one scent from another as readily as we can distinguish one colour from another!
Have you read that fine story by Paul Gallico about the little boy who becomes a kitten? The book is called Jennie after the cat who adopts him when he runs, terrified by the noise and dangers of the city, into an old warehouse where she lives. In this extract, she teaches him to use his sense of smell:
Jennie had got up now and was standing on the edge of the opening with only her head out, whiskers extended forward, quivering a little, and making small wrinkly movements with her nose. After a moment or so of this she turned to Peter quite relaxed, and said, ‘All clear. We can go now. No cats around. There's a dog been by, but only a mangy cur probably afraid of his own shadow. There's a tea boat just docked. That's good. The Watchman won't really have any responsibilities until she's unloaded. Rain's all cleared away. Probably won't rain for another forty-eight hours. Goods train just gone down into the docks area.