Alan Sircom
- Thread starter Midlandaudiox
- Start date
Chris Marshall
pfm Member
Best wishes Alan, hope you're ok soon
Sue Pertwee-Tyr
Accuphase all the way down
Smart, funny guy who writes with a genuine warmth and humour. Hope he's back in harness very soon.
RaphaelSamad
pfm Member
One of the writers whom I respect most. Knowledgeable, friendly, helpful and a great writing talent.
Get well soon.
Get well soon.
Alan is the editor of HiFi+ and also writes most of the articles from what I can remember.
I hope he is back to full strength soon!
Elephantears
Trunkated Aesthete
I've been an admirer of Alan's writing for some time. He did a review of my my primary amps which really got them just right, and since then I've always been keen to hear his views. Also he's been very friendly and helpful the couple of times I've approached him with questions. My best wishes for his recovery.
Last edited:
Alan Sircom
I dü werds, me
Hi all,
Thank you so much for your kind thoughts. Fortunately (and thanks to both my eagle-eyed GP and the team at Ealing hospital), I am not dead. And while I have a blood clot in my lungs the size of a Ford Transit, it is slowly being absorbed back into my body.
Some of my early proper media training was done by old 'hot metal' journalists who could down a bottle of scotch at lunch then file copy while still paralytic. They also taught the power of pulling an all-nighter. They all died old men in their 40s and 50s. The 'hard-drinking' part went away long ago, but in the lockdowns, I've been spending days sitting in a chair listening and nights sitting in another chair writing. The last time I did that day-in, day-out, I was in my mid-to-late 30s. Trying to do it in your mid-to-late 50s results in DVT and said Transit-sized Pulmonary Embolism.
Also, while I've long been one of those annoying 'fat on the outside, thin on the inside' types who can be a fat bastard without falling down the high cholesterol or Type 2 Diabetes traps, being overweight can contribute to DVT. So, it finally got me. I've been stepping away from the pies for some time anyway and have already lost nearly 10kg from my chunkinormous zenith, but more follows. The one good thing in all this is I retain a sense of humour even when hypoxic. In fact, it's almost all I retain and it's annoying. That being said, I hope I cheered up the really quite down guy in the bed opposite (who really wasn't going to get better ever) when I told him that he laughed in his sleep... and he sounded like Tommy Cooper when he did. I think he appreciated it during his more lucid moments.
Anyway, for a while, I've handed the reins over to others, and for some time, I'll be on some very light duties (the consultant looked shocked when I said I knew something was wrong when I couldn't lift a record player without getting really breathless... until I told him how much that Kuzma Stabi R turntable actually weighs). In the meantime, it's chicken soup and watching 'Where Eagles Dare'.
More importantly, remember how easy it is to develop a DVT. We think it's all about the flying, but because so many people are pulling long hours working from home at the moment, lots of people are making the same rookie error I did. And one in three of them don't get to talk about the bullet they just dodged.
Finally, RIP Andy Clough. Although we never worked together, I considered him a friend and a like-minded compatriot in this silly game of ours. I'll miss him.
Kind Regards, thanks and now I'll go back to hiding in the shadows.
Alan
Thank you so much for your kind thoughts. Fortunately (and thanks to both my eagle-eyed GP and the team at Ealing hospital), I am not dead. And while I have a blood clot in my lungs the size of a Ford Transit, it is slowly being absorbed back into my body.
Some of my early proper media training was done by old 'hot metal' journalists who could down a bottle of scotch at lunch then file copy while still paralytic. They also taught the power of pulling an all-nighter. They all died old men in their 40s and 50s. The 'hard-drinking' part went away long ago, but in the lockdowns, I've been spending days sitting in a chair listening and nights sitting in another chair writing. The last time I did that day-in, day-out, I was in my mid-to-late 30s. Trying to do it in your mid-to-late 50s results in DVT and said Transit-sized Pulmonary Embolism.
Also, while I've long been one of those annoying 'fat on the outside, thin on the inside' types who can be a fat bastard without falling down the high cholesterol or Type 2 Diabetes traps, being overweight can contribute to DVT. So, it finally got me. I've been stepping away from the pies for some time anyway and have already lost nearly 10kg from my chunkinormous zenith, but more follows. The one good thing in all this is I retain a sense of humour even when hypoxic. In fact, it's almost all I retain and it's annoying. That being said, I hope I cheered up the really quite down guy in the bed opposite (who really wasn't going to get better ever) when I told him that he laughed in his sleep... and he sounded like Tommy Cooper when he did. I think he appreciated it during his more lucid moments.
Anyway, for a while, I've handed the reins over to others, and for some time, I'll be on some very light duties (the consultant looked shocked when I said I knew something was wrong when I couldn't lift a record player without getting really breathless... until I told him how much that Kuzma Stabi R turntable actually weighs). In the meantime, it's chicken soup and watching 'Where Eagles Dare'.
More importantly, remember how easy it is to develop a DVT. We think it's all about the flying, but because so many people are pulling long hours working from home at the moment, lots of people are making the same rookie error I did. And one in three of them don't get to talk about the bullet they just dodged.
Finally, RIP Andy Clough. Although we never worked together, I considered him a friend and a like-minded compatriot in this silly game of ours. I'll miss him.
Kind Regards, thanks and now I'll go back to hiding in the shadows.
Alan
