Give it another five years and these boards will be down to the G-Man pacing back and forth, muttering to himself like Abin Cooper at the end of Red State.

backwards7 here.

I was diagnosed with Primary Sclerosing Cholangitis in 2007 but I'm okay. I'm stubborn. I'll go down kicking and screaming and clawing at the earth.

I worked in a hospital for close to half a decade but resigned because I thought the site managers were playing fast and loose with patient safety.

Now I'm employed on the more benign end of health and social care policy: Put people at the centre of every decision you make, argue from that point and try not to concede too much ground. You won't go wrong.

I've had odds and ends published, I've been in a play on BBC Radio Four. A few years ago I won the (now defunct) Word Magazine blogger of the year award.

Dave and I met briefly in London earlier this year. We sat at a picnic table outside a cafe in Hyde Park and crammed a lifetime of face to face conversation into a couple of hours.

The internet holds the voices of the dead in suspension. My friend Cat (who also had PSC) passed on the 20th December last year. When I want to remember her I visit her old blog or skim through her twitter feed.

I never interacted with Harley. I remember her as a friendly presence on the board but cannot say that I knew her.

I hope that those here who knew her better than I did can derive some comfort and maybe stir some fond memories by reading what she left behind.


"Season three of The Wire opens with two towers being blown up. This initiates a dumb and protracted war. Now people will come to me and ask, 'Is there a metaphor here?' Well what the fuck do you think?"

- David Simon