Monthly Archives: October 2013

books

National Novel Writing Month

November is National Novel Writing Month.
Can you write a novel in a month? That’s the challenge for all you budding authors. The idea is to write a 50,000 word novel in just thirty days. The deadline is 2359 hrs on 30 November!


What can you write? Any type of fiction you want! Horror, romance … erotica! Whatever you feel passionate enough to tell a story about. So far over 150,000 potential novelists have signed up to take part.
You can sign up to take part, and get support, on the National Novel Writing Month website at http://nanowrimo.org/.
And no, you won’t see me there. I know I don’t have an original story in my body, so I’m not going to stress myself even trying. Sorry!

words

Word: Tintinnabulation

Tintinnabulation
bellsA ringing of a bell or bells, bell-ringing; the sound or music so produced. The lingering sound that occurs after a bell has been struck.
The OED gives the first recorded use as late as 1831 and is ascribed to Edgar Allen Poe in his poem The Bells.
Oh and the word derives from the Latin tintinnābulum, a bell.
Isn’t it just a wonderful onomatopoeic word?

photography

Photograph of the Week

I thought it was about time we had some more cat porn. So here is Tilly the (not so small) kitten taken earlier today. She is now almost 23 weeks and growing nicely. But as you see she is such a poor neglected kitten she has to sleep amongst the filing on the study floor! The rest of the time she’s charging around like Evel Knievel — or eating. Well typical teenager really!

Click the image for larger versions on Flickr
Tilly
Tilly
Greenford; 28 October 2013

medical, personal, ramblings

On Flu Jabs and Sleep

I love curiosities!
Early on Friday afternoon I had my annual flu jab. By the evening I was beginning to feel meh. Yesterday I was fit for nothing; not full flu but everything except the severe body aches and high temperature. So I spent the day curled up under the duvet, mostly asleep. Not nice, but better this than having full-blown flu.
I understand why this can be a side-effect of the flu jab: basically it is an immune reaction to the (dead) bits of virus in the inoculation which stimulate the immune system to produce antibodies that protect against the real virus. So it is working as designed.


But what I don’t understand is why this only happens to some people and why it doesn’t happen consistently every year. When I first started having the flu jab it would make me feel mucky for half a day or so — maybe less. But three years ago the vaccine contained bird flu (or was it swine flu?) and that knocked me out for well over a week! (Unless I did actually catch flu at the same time I had the jab — unlikely, methinks.) Last year the inoculation flattened me a for a couple of days. This year it has done much the same.
Yes, OK, it is my immune system working as designed. But is this “excessive” reaction a sign that I have a good strong immune system that gets to work quickly and well? Or is it a sign that I have a weakened immune system which is struggling to catch up? Dunno.
I find this whole reaction (side-effect) curious.
Anyway, as I said, I spent yesterday curled up under the duvet. The curiosity here is “curled up”.
Now I normally sleep flat out. Either on my back or (more usually) on my front; and I always have done ever since I can remember. And Noreen will tell you I’m normally spread-eagled across the bed.
But yesterday I was curled up in a foetal position on my left side. I only ever do this when I’m ill. (Occasionally if very depressed I will curl in a foetal position on my right side; but never on my left side.) I’m guessing this is an ancient animal instinct to protect ones soft parts when most vulnerable (asleep). I’d also guess that being on my left side is because I am right-handed — this position leaves my stronger right hand free to smack any predator in the jaw. Maybe?
So just another curiosity.
I love curiosities!

current affairs, medical

In which I Wonder about Local Politicians

North-West London NHS last year consulted on proposals to rationalise the delivery of A&E services in the hospitals in its area. One element of this is the closure of A&E at Ealing Hospital, close to where I live. This is unlikely to happen for at least three and probably five years.


Needless to say the majority of the local community are up in arms, assisted by some very cynical sound-bites from local politicians and campaigners who see this as a threat to the very existence of the hospital (which according to the consultation it isn’t). Indeed the local council have taken the whole matter to the courts and failed to get a judicial review of the consultation process. Currently a final decision is awaited from the Secretary of State for Health, Jeremy Hunt; this is expected within days.
Following the refusal of the judicial review there was, last weekend, a rally to continue the voicing of protest. According to the reports this attracted a paltry 100 people — clearly the local rent-a-mob don’t like going out in the rain! At the rally Ealing Council Leader, Julian Bell, vowed to fight on and “chain ourselves to the gates before they roll the bulldozers in”.
Whether you agree with the proposals or not, this is just so pathetic. Not only does this portray Cllr Bell as a bad loser, has he actually thought this thing through?
By the time any bulldozers move in (and they should as the current hospital building is hardly fit for purpose) the proposals to which objections are being raised will have been implemented and the hospital will still be operational. According to, and as I understand, the plans the bulldozers would be clearing only a part of the present Ealing Hospital site to enable the building of a new, modern healthcare facility alongside the existing hospital. Only once the new facility takes over could the present building be closed.
So all Cllr Bell seems to be doing is delaying the implementation of improved healthcare for his constituents.
Is Cllr Bell really this stupid? Or is it me that’s missing something?

food+drink

Pasta with Smoked Salmon & Broad Beans

Last evening I did yet another variation on my quick pasta recipe. This time with some smoked salmon and broad beans. It went like this:


Preparation: 10-15 minutes
Cooking time: 5 minutes
You will want:

  • Pasta (variety of your choice)
  • Smoked Salmon (at least 100gm per person; salmon pieces are fine)
  • Broad Beans (I used 2-3 handfuls of frozen baby BB; you could substitute frozen peas as in the image above)
  • 2-3 tomatoes (or some cherry tomatoes)
  • Medium (preferably red) onion
  • Garlic (quantity to taste)
  • Juice and zest of a lemon
  • Chopped parsley
  • Black pepper
  • Olive oil and/or butter

And this is what you do:

  1. First of all get the pasta and broad beans on to cook; you want them done in advance. When they are cooked take them off, drain them and keep warm.
  2. While the pasta and beans cook, roughly chop the onion, garlic, tomatoes and parsley. Cut the salmon into mailing label sized pieces. Zest and juice the lemon.
  3. Have the plates and the table ready.
  4. When the pasta and beans are ready you can start cooking the main dish which will take only a few minutes.
  5. Sauté the onion and garlic in some olive oil and/or butter (on a high heat) until the onion is just going translucent.
  6. Now add the chopped tomatoes and a good grind of black pepper; cook for a further minute or two.
  7. Before the tomatoes soften, add the beans and the lemon. Stir all together and keep cooking for a minute or so.
  8. Now add the smoked salmon, trying to stop the pieces sticking together, and again cook for a couple of minutes until the salmon is going pale.
  9. Now finally add the pasta and parsley and mix together gently. Cook again for a minute or two.
  10. Serve on warm plates, with optionally some parmesan, and a glass of white wine or champagne.

What a good, and easy, way to use up some left-over smoked salmon!

beliefs, current affairs

Not Already!!

Watching BBC Breakfast yesterday (22 October) I spotted my first Remembrance Day poppy if the year. It was being worn by some female, the head of one of our plethora of regulators, who was being given an easy ride of an interview.
This is obscenely early, given that Remembrance Day (11 November) isn’t for another three weeks.
But then, as I’ve said before, I sometimes think I’m the only person in the country who finds everything about Remembrance Day sick and obscene. I’m with novelist Evelyn Waugh who in his youthful diaries described Remembrance Day as

… a disgusting idea of artificial nonsense and sentimentality. If people have lost sons and fathers, they should think of them whenever the grass is green or Shaftesbury Avenue brightly lighted, not for two minutes on the anniversary of a disgraceful day of national hysteria.


And no, before you start, that doesn’t mean I’m unpatriotic or un-anything-else. It means I have no wish to glorify war and prefer to go forward rather than continually look backward — and believe the country would be a better place if everyone did this.
Remember: those who look backward get turned into pillars of salt.

links

You may have missed

Another instalment in our irregular series of items you may have missed. Let’s start, as usual, with the more nerdy stuff, but today with a cartoon …
An interesting cartoon form XKCD which shows the relative (angular) sizes of various celestial objects compared with ground-based ones.
Brooke Borel on all the possible uses for cadavers and why she wants her body cut up for science


Unlike our hunter-gatherer forebears we aren’t great insect eaters. Maybe we should be as they are surprisingly nutritious. Here are seven insects we may be eating in the future. I still think I want them cooked first.
So following on from faecal transplants, scientists are now beginning to make progress on putting a mix of faecal bacteria in a pill. I think I could swallow that.
Only slightly less worryingly, someone somewhere ate a dead shrew in the interests of science. Another curiosity from the IgNobel Awards.
The octopus is weird, surprisingly intelligent and mischievous. Wired investigates.
Another interesting piece, this from the New York Times, on why superstitions may make sense after all.
Christie Aschwanden writing in the Washington Post, looks at the problems with mammograms for all and why she has decided to opt out. Yep, this is the age-old problem with screening: it picks up far too many false positives and leads to over-treatment.
So why are pregnant women warned to stay clear of just about everything? Well there might be a risk, but we really don’t know.
Another Guardian piece this time suggesting that breastfeeding, and indeed the effects of motherhood on the normal (ie. any and every) female body, won’t be treated as normal until photographers and the media are much more open about showing photographs of the same. Yes, indeed, and the same goes for the rest of our bodies — male as well as female.
And let’s also be clear that motherhood is no rest cure. Here’s one guy who is upset that everyone thinks his stay-at-home-and-look-after-the-kids wife doesn’t do anything.
Now we’ll change track. The former railways minister Tom Harris (Labour, Glasgow South) wants the government to “invest in the daily hell of commuting, not HS2” which seems to make sense to me.

So from the ridiculous to the crazy … It’s a slightly old link but here’s a piece about the Codex Seraphinianus, a modern day Voynich Manuscript.
How and why do words become unusable and an investigation of auto-antonyms.
Have you ever wondered how cats see the world? Well scientists have been working it out. Here are some examples.
And finally bizarreness of the month. Fukushima Industries just made a very unfortunate branding choice. Surely has to be a candidate for a sporting mascot!? Enjoy!