All rise for the TV

What's up with TV audiences nowadays? They're standing up. I noticed Top Gear started the trend a few years ago with getting rid of chairs and making their audience stand up.

Now, I've seen that It Pays to Watch, makes its audience stand up.

Instead of filming in locations with seating for the audience eg big televsion studios it allows the programme makers to film in a wider variety of locations. Top Gear is supposedly filmed at an airfield and it looks like the audience are in a hanger. What's IPTW's excuse?

Is this just a way off saving money on big studios and filming in smaller locations with just a couple dozen people standing around?

Why not go further and cut out the audience?

I liked the good old days when there was massive audience in a big studio. I've been to recordings at the BBC's Wood Lane studio as well as the Elstree studio where I saw Who Wants to be a Millonaire and the LWT Tower's studios on the South Bank.

Frozen Face 4: Feedback

I had a shock today, albeit a pleasant one. The GP I saw last week about my frozen face, Dr C, actually phoned me up to find out how I was. This was the first time I GP had ever phoned me to find out my condition. Kudos to her. I'm afraid she's young and she'll learn to be cynical and not bother in future.

I said there was no change and she said that her brother-in-law had developed the same problem as me and had no noticed any improvement despite taking the same steroids. She said that he been taking 60 mg of prednisolone instead of the 30 mg, I'm taking. She had asked him where he had got that figure from. As he's a doctor, himself, he decided to super-size his dose and wrote out a double-dose prescription for himself. Of course, she said, she wanted to protect me from the side-effects but hopefully my body has had a week to resist them and can now be in a good position to resist the downside of a double-dose.

As I've received a bottle of 100 minute 5 mg tablets, I calculate I still have 52 tablets left, which should allow me to have 4 days of doubled doses, which is 2 days more than the recommended course.

Financial Advice Exam 3 - results

I passed CeFA-3 getting merit passes in both the retirement and protection section. 80%+ is needed for this compared to 90%+ for a distinction.

The next exam, logically enough, is CeFA-4 where I have to show that I can:

"apply the knowledge and understanding of modules one, two and three in order to apply suitable financial solutions within the regulatory and ethical framework"

The first 3 modules cover:

• UK financial services industry, regulation and ethics
• Investments and risk
• Protection
• Retirement

I'm planning to take this exam by April 2008.

Double Trouble?

I went to see my rheumatologist today. I told him that the steroid injection had helped. The pain in my wrist had reduced but had no abated completely.

I asked him if there was any possible connection between the inflammation in my wrist and the inflammation in my face, diagnosed as Bell's Palsy. He confirmed that Bell's palsy is what doctors diagnose when they don't know what the problem is.

Contrary to what the GP said, he then said that it was possible the 2 sources of inflammation were connected. He got very excited about a possible connection as he had looked for this with other patients but hadn't found it. So, I could be the star subject of his next paper, if there is a link. This link could be sarcoidosis or snappily shortened to sarcoid, which is an auto-immune disease causing inflammation whose symptoms include arthritis in the ankles and paralysed facial muscles.

On the other hand, sarcoid tends to affect the lungs first and my chest x-ray showed nothing untoward. The rheumatologist was going to send me for a lung function test but said that with my frozen face, I couldn't do the test. It probably involves blowing into a cardboard tube, which I think is used to check for asthma and other breathing problems.

To find out if there is a link, he ordered yet another test for me on 15/1/08. This will be a Gallium scan which will involve being injected with radioactive 56Ga which has a half-life of 78.3 hours. If the compound used is Gallium Citrate, it should concentrate in inflammed areas. 2 days later, I will get scanned on 17/1/08 and sources of inflammation should show up.

Apparently, if the doctor can see a panda on my scan, I have a 95% chance of having sarcoid.

I will see the rheumatologist on 29/1/08 for the Gallium results.

After all this speculation, it the uncovering of a possible link between my afflictions, it was time to forgot all that and travel to my CeFA-3 exam which started in 2 hours.

Films: they're not set in the good old days

When it comes to films, The Guardian's Joe Queenan is a technophobe.

I guess he doesn't like 24, with Jack Bauer's nuclear-powered mobile phone and his PDA with GPS that gets a signal from a dozen satellites immediately.

He doesn't just want films made like they did in the good 'ol days but also set in the good 'ol days.

Financial Advice Exam 3

In my spare time, I have been studying for my IFS financial advice exams. Instead of studying for them, I have been watching lots of free French DVDs from the online rental website, Lovefilm. They've give me 3 months free membership as I cancelled my last free trial before I had to start paying. So, those lovely film lovers have let me watch dozens of DVDs for free, including all 7 discs of 24, series 7.

I have to pass all 6 of them of being authorised by the FSA. So, having passed 2 already, I have 18 months to do the other 4.

At the moment I am studying for the 3rd Certificate for Financial Advisers (CeFA) exam, CeFA-3, which has units in Retirement & Protection, both of which have to be passed separately, with a 70% pass mark.

The exam is on 8/1/08.

Face Frozen 3: Hell's Bell

I phoned up to see a doctor in the morning but they were booked up.

I phoned up in the afternoon and finally got an appointment. It was at 15:40 but I had to wait till 16:15.

The doctor was very young - late 20s or early 30s and she was quick to diagnose. She printed out a sheet of information of the Net and read it out to me. Sir Lancelot wouldn't be doing that.

The doctor said I had Bell's Palsy. This is an inflammation of the nerves to the face. It wasn't a stroke or Lyme's disease. So, there's a good chance it will clear up but it could take several weeks to several months.

She was slower to prescribe. Steroids improve the chance of recovery but she didn't know how much I should take so she rang several doctors to find out. Is that a sign of poor training, lack of experience or conscientiousness? I don't know but it's the first time a doctor has ever done that in front of me. In the past, they've usually left the room.

I'm to take 30 mg of prednisolone but they come in minute 5mg capsules so I need to carefully count out 6 of them without dropping them. Finding them would be difficult as I can't close my right eye and it's getting very teary. So, I have to go for the Snake Plissken look and wear an eye-patch.

Unfortunately, the one I have seems to be for mini-Me and barely covers my eyeball, let along the whole eye.

I thought that wearing that I won't be able to drive because of the lack of stereoscopic vision to judge distance but the doctor said one-eyed people can drive. That explains the tail-gaters behind me, I think.