All change

OK. Got fed up with trying to fit ideas into a medical context, so generic observations are back.

Same rules, but more pictures.

Anyway, some recent thoughts...

I met a lovely Jewish chap in the Bell and Crown the other day who brightened up my day no end. 

I refer to his religious status up front because he wears a kippa and so this, visually at least, defines him. 

In the twenty or so minutes during which we spoke we covered the following topics: the buildings in Strand on the Green, and why there are so many 1950s houses in the middle of Victorian terraces; Fleming and the fortuitous discovery of penicillin; life on Welsh peninsulas, and German wire-haired pointers. 

Everything he noticed sparked another story, and everything became richer and more nuanced for its discussion.

He was perhaps the most intelligent and gentle fellow I've chanced upon in years. And I'll be honest with you: with all the recent hoo-ha in Israel I've not had a lot of time for Jewish sentiment of late. Extreme, I know, but there's been rather too much self-assertion of a bad type going on there. 

But this chap was how I'd imagine Rabbi Lionel Blue to be if he were to be plucked out of the radio and stuck in a pub. To my mind, the best of Jewishness (or probably anyone-ness): kind, intelligent, funny and interesting. 

Which made me sad that their Israeli brethren are giving them such a bad rap at the moment.