Tuesday night television revival

Usually I find Tuesday evenings on television to be a bit of a graveyard. Not such a bad thing since I've been putting aside that time to prepare whatever topic I'm tutoring about for the week.

But last night the ABC was on fire. First up was the final of Race to London, the final in a six part series about six potential Olympians. I particularly enjoyed the Paralympians they included. I discovered that the guy who coaches the wheelchair rugby team was a bloke I prescribed a wheelchair for once in a long-ago job. Prescribed is probably too generous a way to describe it really. He came to me, told me what he wanted, and I filled in the paperwork so he could get it through the government's equipment supply scheme. An easy customer in the often complex world of wheelchair prescription.

Then Foreign Correspondent had a great documentary called "Globesity" about the spread of the obesity crisis from the Western world into less developed countries. Some of the statistics on the rise of diseases like Type 2 diabetes in countries like India and Mexico were incredible. Junk food companies like to talk about "the individual's responsibility to maintain good health" but in countries where the history has been of a lack of rather than abundance of food, I think the companies need to take a good hard look at themselves and their marketing techniques.

And finally, on Artscape, a fantastic story called Margaret Olley: A Life in Paint (image above from here). Amazing insights into the way she worked. There were interviews with Margaret and with her close friends about her life and art. She died the way I think I would like to one day. She created a beautiful painting, then went to bed and passed away peacefully in her sleep at the age of 88. Well, I probably won't be creating the great painting. But it sounds like a lovely way to go.

Some money from her trust was donated to our local art gallery after her death and they are going to use the money to build an extension called the Margaret Olley Art Centre, which will include a recreation of her studio and include elements of her home and artworks. I think it will be amazing to see when it is all finished.

A very interesting evening, all up. And in amongst all of that quality viewing, I had to find time to learn how to use crutches for this week's Uni tutorial. In my opinion, a useless skill to teach occupational therapists because I have never worked anywhere that an OT has been allowed to prescribe and teach clients how to use them. That's what Physios are for. I would have been pretty hopeless at teaching them anything about this, but fortunately my helpful husband physio was on hand to borrow crutches from his workplace and show me what to do with them. I'm not a very co-ordinated type so I think another evening of practice lies ahead. Stairs are still challenging.