5th post of this most recent context.

Incidentally, I've not included any illustrations of prostate cancer grading - only to ensure that I don't fall foul of copyright - these can easily be found by using your preferred search engine to find, say, 'Gleason grading of prostate cancer' and scroll down to 'Images'.

I've talked about Gleason 6 (3+3) and Gleason 7 (3+4), Groups 1 and 2 respectively, which are generally well differentiated cells. The former is clinically insignificant (it would probably be watched/monitored, rather than immediately treated) but the latter is (the first) of the clinically significant gradings, with more stroma/connective tissue, between the cells/glands.

I haven't referred to the numbers in brackets yet, but in essence these numbers reflect the smallness, uniformity, of the glands. Both of these, whilst positive for cancer, are relatively early grade (I may refer more to Staging at a later date, although if you look again to my first post in this context, where I've made reference to Sir Chris Hoy, you'll gather already that Stage 4 is when the primary cancer - in the prostate - has also spread to other tissues and become secondary cancer. Metastases to the bones is generally considered terminal).

If you do a search you'll pick up that a Gleason 7 (4+3 - NOTE it is still a Gleason 7 but the ordering has shifted from 3+4 to 4+3: the cancerous cells here are predominantly a higher Pattern 4 but there are also some lower Pattern 3's in the biopsy). This is a Group 3 cancer of the prostate. You'll see the uniformity of the cells is not so clear - there are in fact 'distinctly infiltrative margins' (this is how my OU module referred to it - the cells are predominantly undifferentiated).

There are three things then to think about with the classification of the grading of prostate cancer, the Gleason SCORE, the PATTERN of cells (from each core that is taken during the biopsy, a pattern is given, the first number represents the most frequently occurring pattern of cells in the core and to this is added the less frequently occurring pattern of cells - e.g.- (3 + 4)) and to this is added the GROUP (this is more up to date - but in my view it's unlikely that Gleason score will ever disappear from practice, it's too good). TOGETHER, these are all part of the GRADING.

On a Pathology report you might see the whole thing - GRADING - written like this: GROUP 2 GLEASON 7 (3+4), for example.

A Gleason 8 (4+4 or 3+5 or 5+3) are poorly differentiated with irregular masses of neoplastic glands. This is a Group 4 prostate cancer.

Neoplastic in the biological context: an abnormal mass of tissue. This came from the Greek for 'new formation'.

Gleason 9 and 10, each categorised as Group 5 prostate cancer, show only occasional gland formation. The cells are sometimes referred to as 'anaplastic'. These describe rapidly dividing cells with little or no resemblance to normal cells.

Next time: Evidence that supports the probability of at least some malignancy in the prostate by age range 70 to 80 (it's around 50%). This likelihood increases to approaching 70% at over 80 years of age - but many at that age will have had a less aggressive cancer, which may never need treatment. Another thing to bear in mind is that there are side effects to all treatments and whilst it is difficult to accept, one has to keep in mind average life expectancy (it can't last forever) and quality of life.

Many of us males (within the Harley fanbase) are in our 60's or even 70's now and that's why I've encouraged the male fanbase (those over 50 years of age - you see PSA tends to increase (slightly) naturally with age, even in the absence of disease and so even more reason to get tested) to seek a PSA serum blood test and a DRE. Each only take a few minutes...

Take care, stay your way,

It's coming up to the first anniversary of Steve's death and he (is) in my mind and I'm sure many of yours...

X

EDIT 23/06/25: in part or in full, associated (cancer) threads:


www.steveharley.com/forum/5-forum-questi...who-s-that-girl.html


www.steveharley.com/forum/6-general-disc...harity.html?start=36


X

6th post of the most recent context:

I said I would provide a reference relating to probability of prostate cancer in older men. Here it is. It's a clearly written (only nine pages including approx. one and a half pages of references and it's open access, to download), my view is that it is intended for a wide audience, not just health sciences professionals.

Below it I'll also include a secondary reference - though the detail of this is under restricted access. A secondary reference is one that is included/referred to, in the primary reference material, in this case:

"Prostate Cancer in Elderly Men" by Stangelberger, A, Waldert, M, and Djavan, B. (2008). All three are MD's and worked either in Austria or Brussels. REVIEWS IN UROLOGY. VOL. 10 NO.2: 2008.

"...The current lifetime risk of developing prostate cancer is 16.7% (1 in 6 men). The probability of developing histological evidence of prostate cancer is even higher. Carter and colleagues showed that 50% of men between 70 and 80 years of age showed histological evidence of malignancy..."


Secondary reference:

Carter, H.B., Piantadosi, S.,Isaacs, J.T. Clinical evidence for and implications of the multistep development of prostate cancer. J Urol. 1997;158:1127-1130.

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"What can possibly go wrong? [Cancers]

Proto-oncogenes - Growth factors - Signalling enzymes - Receptors - Transcription factors

Proto-oncogene errors

DNA repair gene errors

Tumour suppressor gene errors"

Dr John Bradley, for the OU, Module S290 (2021).

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A proto-oncogene is a normal gene involved in cell growth and division that can become an on-cogene (a cancer causing gene). This can occur if mutated or overexpressed.

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P.S. I've just watched and listened to the BBC News at One and learned that former F1 Team owner, TV presenter and businessman, the popular Eddie Jordan, has died earlier today at the age of 76 - of prostate cancer.

The nearest I got to (live) F1 was (I think) F2 (or F3) at Oulton Park in Cheshire in 1972, when I was 13 (with my brother and sister-in-law). Graham Hill (his son Damon won Eddie's first F1 Title, I believe) was there that day racing and we saw him crash out (not badly, he walked out of it). Sadly, three years later, he was in a fatal light aircraft crash with a number of others.

Condolences to Eddie's family and (many) friends.

Moving this back to the philosophical, a little like Steve's observation that only children can (effectively) live upon a timeless flight. Considering too Honeybadger's thread about... the impression of being relaxed (her thread lower down this list in this section of the Forum refers) and mixing these up with my own visit to and conversation with (a new - though at the same practice) my dentist, last week.

Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel's album title - here - could be about several different things, all are relevant to the mind. When I was young, I couldn't escape from periodic anxiety, about a number of things - even mortality when that wasn't obviously immediately threatened.

Some anxiety is a good thing, in fact an evolutionary mechanism - a la Charles Darwin (1819-1882), a pre-requisite for survival. Sullivan (Harry Stack, 1892-1949) called 'Fear' an integrating tendency, but 'Anxiety' a disintegrating tendency. A clear way of explaining the same idea, Harry, I think.

Is a timeless flight a happy journey? Maybe being content in being able to do what you want to do. Maybe that's how Steve felt, four albums in?

(This next bit is 'down' to Y..., the person). Perhaps accepting that 'all this' is temporary, is one way of reducing anxiety? Personally, I could only get near this aim - now that I'm older - what a paradox heh!? He said something else, that really stuck with me. 'When you are conscious, keep your eyes open'. In other words, don't close your eyes when trying to avoid or reduce (disintegrating) anxiety.

Is a timeless flight temporary or continuous, or is it just not measured? Or is it that the measure of time - time that all are hungry for - doesn't always matter? Anyway, I'll be putting 'this' to the test soon, I may report back...Stay well, maintain your ego, feel well, feel happy. X

THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES (Harley, Steve 1974/1975)

EMI - EMC 3068

The track, the lyrics and (my own thoughts and partly guessed meanings - a personal view AND several questions)

I would agree with the opening line - I still remember seeing a total (beautiful) stranger in the Netherlands on my way to Austria (in 1983)...

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EDIT (07/08/25) Wait, 'Maids' could be about liberating Allied forces (1944/1945) being greeted by the female populace? Why had I not thought of this before, in the 50 years I have enjoyed the song!? Doubly, it could be about the Steve and Cockney Rebel fan base, greeting him/them, on their European tours?

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Is the second line fanciful or about another band? - I can't imagine Steve and Cockney Rebel being barred from anywhere...

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EDIT 07/08/25 Wait, '...barred from the shore' could be a direct reference to the D-Day (6 June 1944) Allied landings and the stiff Nazi defences barring the Allies intended liberation (?)

Definition of barred (Oxford Languages): "closed or secured with a long rigid piece of wood, metal, or similar material". Barbed wire would be caught by definition.

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I suspect that the next four lines are a dig at the critics...

The next two lines perhaps continue this theme but it is the second line of these that caught my mind, "No truth is in here, it's all fantasy' - that might still be about the critics or it might be about the pop and rock life - the effect of substances or the paranoia that can sometimes lead from it (?)

Within the next four lines Steve might have been writing for himself (following on) and he may be talking to his audience (maybe some of the changes within Cockney Rebel and the whole approach?)

Is the chorus referring to the potential (or belief - Steve was very confident) of a number one single (just a couple of months after recording the album of the same name as this song) and a Top 5 UK album?

The pop music charts were part of the banter of youth.

The first two of the following four lines express a certain awkwardness and shyness - the second have to be about Steve's physical legacy post polio.

I've no idea about the final two lines and four lines before the final chorus.


The original EMI deal for three albums all lyrically contained at least some reference to the health of the mind and emotional states (very topical, especially today and always relevant). I started this thread by reference to Freud and I'll finish it with a tie-in of the same. After all, the middle album in the deal was titled 'The Psychomodo':

" Thus we see that both in neurosis and psychosis there comes into consideration the question not only of a loss of reality but also of a substitute for reality". (Sigmund Freud, 1924)

"...Ah, but it's magic, it's the best years of our lives". (Steve Harley, 1975)

X

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EDIT 06/08/25

The track starts with an air raid siren (WWII). I've recalled reference I've made before to the 1946 film of the same name as Steve's song. The lines that I've previously indicated I have no idea about, might involve oblique references to the film.

Maybe Steve saw the film, as a boy? The film is written around three central US male servicemen from WWII.

By chance I've just watched 'Hiroshima' by the BBC (2005), narrated by the late John Hurt, for the second time - since it was first aired.

The last four line verse of the song might have been an indirect reference to the Japanese soldier's sense of honour - their initial no surrender stance and when that was relinquished following the surrender after Nagasaki, a number of senior military figures did "...die by the knife...", by their own hand. I am just guessing!

Associated thread (PART 3 therein refers):

www.steveharley.com/forum/5-forum-questi...hat-s-in-a-name.html

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EDIT 07/08/25 Some of the older (now largely gone) generation, in the UK, paradoxically, referred to the war years, in some ways (again, this is the Freudian pleasure principle v the Freudian reality principle, in my view) as being, 'the best years of our lives...'

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That potential paradox won't have been lost on the poet and songwriter Harley.

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EPILOGUE: I realised over the weekend that I had immersed myself in a fair part of fantasy myself, back in 1975, but that might have also been the consequence of the natural developmental stages of my brain organ, dendritic growth and pruning etc. or to put it the way of one more contemporary songwriter and producer (Labrinth):

"I'm inside it,
The membrane eh,
Look what you created"

('from Treatment' by Labrinth, 2012. Released on Syco)

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EDIT 07/08/25: In the EPILOGUE I have referred to dendritic growth and pruning (this is of brain neurons). Besides this physiological developmental process of HOMO SAPIENS..

[STOP PRESS - can't remember where I placed it, thread wise, but I relatively recently said that we've been around 200,000 years as a species - this is now (again) out of date. The real answer is around 300,000 years, since our appearance on Earth. And the earliest finds are no longer in Eastern Africa but now North Western Africa - Morocco. This is covered by Human (2025) a BBC series (currently on their iPlayer), presented by Ella Al-Shamahi]

06/09/25 EDIT The 200,000 years reference was made in the 'What's In a Name?' thread, lower in list of threads in this very section of the Forum. X

...WORKING IN CONJUNCTION with dendritic growth and pruning are changes in hormonal homeostasis and neurotransmitters. Currently (for me) it is changes in hormones (specifically, levels of testosterone and DHT, dihydrotestosterone) that is forming part of my current treatment - outlined in the PREAMBLE of another of my threads (that is again offering me a strong hope of continuing positivity):

www.steveharley.com/forum/5-forum-questi...who-s-that-girl.html

Science, the natural world and art (and architecture) and music (this is a science too) and history are all, fascinating and the main thing...

x

"...You're not a skin or a spiv, boy who are you trying to kid
You're jolly handsome, super, wizard, okay?" (Steve Harley, 1973)

Marc Bolan (1947-1977) was Steve's inspiration for the song.

For me, Cockney Rebel - at this point - the album undiscovered by me until January 1975 - were the epitome of cool. The whole concept worked.


MIRROR FREAK from "The Human Menagerie of Cockney Rebel" EMA 759 stereo OC 064 05438, EMI Records Ltd.


For me, it is the most important track, in terms of influence, how I would shift my own persona and the effect on my personality.

"Exhibition yourself..." I did.

At school, at that time, yes, there were still skins, a couple of years earlier, I saw one of three of them (one who was to become a member of the controversial 'Skrewdriver', a cult punk band, who might have had 15 minutes of fame? Or infamy), come off worst, in a confrontation with 'Pearsy' - this is the nearest to identifying him I'm prepared to reveal. He knew Martin R, who was a friend of mine - he signed the outer envelope of my school report with best wishes - which is something that somebody came up with (I still have it), on the last day of school in July 1975 and he was present at the August 2025 get-together.

'Pearsy' was tall, good looking, and was definitely not a skin. I'd heard that he'd approached the three, one by one (I never found out why). I saw the second one get hit (this was the future member of the band mentioned above) and his nose immediately bled profusely. He took it and walked off, hand over nose...

At that time, there were also glam boys, teenyboppers, suedeheads, one Ted (Harry), a few smoothies and Northern soul boys. I don't recall any mods or rockers by 1973-75 (the former would make a comeback, post punk with new wave, a few years after school). The girls were often, more mature, and didn't feel the need for such (gang) personas.

I had no real idea what was happening to me at the time - other than how I've described it elsewhere herein and now here. I looked at Steve's image on the front cover of the album...

My hair in 1971 was more like David Sylvian's would become - not in the late 1970's - when they (Japan) initially struggled commercially - but by the early 1980's, by which time, they'd 'made it'. I always regret not seeing and hearing them live, but with success, they imploded.

In January 1975, I adopted Steve's look (minus the nail varnish). The 'wings' either side of my parting got more pronounced, bigger, but at the back it couldn't be left more than three or four inches below the collar because, as it was, Mr S (who I liked and respected), used to start his metalwork lesson by getting all the lads with hair more than one inch below the collar, to come to the front and in turn, he would slap (us), once (on the backside). He did it with a small plank of wood, not his hand, but not hard. It just stung a little! Corporal punishment, where appropriate, was considered the order of the day...

Like Steve, I lost a certain amount (not all) of this (for me) object, extension of my DNA, of narcissism, not only by genetic expression, but how those genes interacted with DHT (dihydrotestosterone), which in many males works in a particular way on the follicles... It started thinning in the 1980's and consciously, at least, it didn't seem to affect me that much. At 24, I was circuit training three times a week and felt in peak physical condition - courtesy (though I paid!) of a friend that owned a gym. By my 30's I was swimming three times a week and often, a hundred lengths (25m pool) per session...

My own experience during those first six months of 1975, I will describe using single words or short phrases (as they come to mind whilst I'm writing this);

Narcissistic

Confident

Happy

Little focus on academia, greater focus on gaining attention (this was definitely not ADHD, however)

Pleasure seeking

Egotistical

Loving at least a little female attention and close proximity

Hormonally high

Stylish

A feeling of well being - to a level I have not felt again - however in my London period, 1995-2001, I got quite close to it...

Childish. I can hardly believe it now, but a few of us would use empty biro bodies as 'pea' shooters (tiny balls of rolled up paper, moistened by mouth, or rice were actually used - on both innocents and protagonists: I'll just say rice was never used by me, my super-ego [conscience] even at that age, wouldn't permit me to waste food), during Maths, for example. Which reminds me, whilst there were fights in the school yard, that were sometimes bloody, there were never, knives, in those days - not in our school, in the 1970 -1975 period.

Our teacher had the DFC (Distinguished Flying Cross) too - handlebar moustache - he served on bombers in WW2! and he was a really nice man and a decent teacher - Mr Collins. He was just slightly hard of hearing and so we got away with the 'dirty' (tiny balls of paper and spittle) habit!

Within one year after leaving school (at college) I'd lost that mojo I had and three years after that, I came 'down to earth with a bang', and then I started getting myself together...

This whole thread of mine though is about the timeless flight we perceive, especially in youth, and Steve must have thought about this, three albums later...

Have a good week xx

P.S. This post has got so close to the core of my personality, that I'm uncertain whether I'll be posting again (for the foreseeable, or at least for a good while), so take care of yourselves and keep active physically and keep watching and listening!

I'll probably update my 'Who's That Girl' thread, when I have a better idea...

Very best,
Jem x


Associated thread:

www.steveharley.com/forum/7-welcome-mat/...kney-rebel-1973.html











This period during early 1975, was my 'solstice', as well as, in my view, the 'solstice' of this great band! Maybe it should have happened in 1973, with the release of their debut, but personally speaking, I'm glad it happened a little later.

(OBITER...I've not looked into it, but I wonder why James Blunt wrote a song entitled '1973'? This must have been the year he was conceived - upon checking his birth date? Anyway):

www.steveharley.com/forum/5-forum-questi...-solstice.html#13334