Author: Xanthe Hall

  • The Bigger Picture

    Yesterday I did a press conference on behalf of the Congress organisers on the subject of nuclear disarmament. Christian Schönenberger from the Swiss Foreign Office joined us, as did Rebecca Johnson, Vice-Chair of ICAN. Christian Schönenberger referred not only to the excellent speech by Micheline Calmy-Rey, the Swiss Foreign Minister in the plenary that morning,…

  • 5-Minuten-Vorlesung zur Atomwaffenkonvention

  • Cutting the Gordian Knot

    “Turn him to any cause of policy, The Gordian Knot of it he will unloose, Familiar as his garter” (Shakespeare, Henry V, Act 1 Scene 1. 45–47) Before you all physically or mentally traipse off to New York – volcanic ash allowing – I’d like to say something. Nuclear weapons do have a purpose. What…

  • Reality kicks in

    13. Day Forty-two You haven’t heard from me for a while, not since day twenty-seven and today is already day forty-two of this Lyme Diary. I’ve been concentrating very hard on two things: planning for next year and what I want to do when I’m healthy again (that’s real proactive positive thinking, or what we…

  • Learning to Fly

    12. Day Twenty-seven The observant among you might notice that the numbering of these posts has changed. This is because I changed them. All of them. Day One is the day I started writing about my illness in order to externalise it, as part of the healing process (along with all the pills, dietary changes…

  • Walls Come Tumbling Down

    11. Day Twenty-one I didn’t write the blog yesterday because I was just too busy having a life. The 20th anniversary of the Fall of the Wall was something to behold, Berlin style. Big pompous show at Brandenburg Gate with Thomas Gottschalk and a spectacular domino event plus fireworks, while the more hands-on activist types…

  • Loud as a Whisper

    10. Day Eighteen You may have been surprised when I admitted to being a Michael Jackson fan, but I have another confession to make. I am a Trekkie. And after many years of being totally purist and insisting on only watching the orginal series, I have discovered The Next Generation and I like it. I…

  • Heal the World

    9. Day Sixteen Hey, I feel great. Almost no pain at all. Two whole days already. Probably because I stopped taking the Colestyramin. Or because I took it. Is it a good sign or a bad sign that there’s no pain? Was I having Herxheimer reactions (sign of bacterial die-off) and now I’m not? Well,…

  • This is it

    8. Day Twelve People look at me askance when I say how much I love Michael Jackson’s music. Except my husband who feels exactly the same. And now my son is in love with him too. He probably would never have bothered to listen to him had he not upped and died. We went to…

  • Infection

    7. Day Eleven Infection creates inflammation; inflammation is war: dangerous enemy pathogens invade the body and encounter a defence system that attack and fight them. War in the body. If the body conquers the pathogens then the infection is over. If the pathogens conquer the body, then you die. That is the analogy that Dethlefsen…